


Where Your Shadow Never Walks Alone

by traptrixnepenthes



Category: Future Card Buddyfight
Genre: M/M, there are so many characters in this. why did i do this, writing this just felt like writing a series finale to be honest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-07 07:09:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18868270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traptrixnepenthes/pseuds/traptrixnepenthes
Summary: may 23, 2014: this was the day that the first ep involving kyoya aired. about five days after that, i posted to tumblr what was probably the world's first kyotas fic, and now here we are, five years later, with this absolute monster of a fic.set post-x2. kyoya asks tasuku if he'll be at his side again, but this time, tasuku hesitates on his answer. finally having time to think things over carefully, he gets the chance to watch how kyoya has changed since they first met, but tasuku realizes that he himself hasn't changed at all.





	Where Your Shadow Never Walks Alone

**Author's Note:**

> writing this ended up being a much bigger project than i expected it to originally! it ended up evolving out of just being a tribute to kyotas into something that's a bit like a tribute to most of my s1 favs, and so it ended up feeling a lot like i was writing a series finale...?? i guess i was, in some ways, given that this is meant to be a finisher for things that happened only through small mentions in card flavor text (hi, kyoya's supposed redemption arc. hi, the prophecy surrounding tasuku)
> 
> that said. i hope you enjoy this! a lot of love and effort was put into this, and it's something i'm happy to share with everyone!
> 
> if you didn't come here via twitter or tumblr, here's the [cover!](https://66.media.tumblr.com/7c8f863009b2dcd3ef41b659b0a16fb4/tumblr_proz2quwBh1tubaw4o1_1280.png)

The assignment was, superficially, pretty basic. Simplistic, even, since it was just a small group of officers being asked to handle security at a party for rich people. The issue was more with whose security needed to be handled, a name that set Tasuku's nerves on edge--it was for the Gaen Financial Group.

For the last half a year or so, Tasuku had been effectively locked out of the loop on any and all matters related to the Gaen Group, especially anything that had to do with Kyoya Gaen, and he understood _why_ perfectly well. You couldn’t just go from being the most highly prized member of a criminal organization back into being a well-respected officer just like that, not when intel had been received that the whole reason the Buddy Card Office had been overtaken in the first place was just so Kyoya could contact Tasuku. It stung a bit to know just how much of a liability he was when it came to this one specific person, but it wasn’t like he could say it was undeserved.

And now, after all that time making all the efforts he could to reclaim his previous reputation, here he was, getting dropped back into a situation that could shatter it into pieces again. Typical, really.

It had been about a month or two since he’d last seen Kyoya, at the tournament that had been held before Gao had moved out of the country, and Tasuku wasn’t exactly certain if he really wanted to see Kyoya again. There wasn’t much left to him at this point, now that the god he’d colluded with had gone back to sleep and the public at large no longer remembered him for much of anything other than the fact that he’d tried to destroy the world a time or two. But then, Tasuku wasn’t the public at large.

“Are you going to be okay?”

The first words out of Jack’s mouth when he heard about the assignment were, predictably, those of worry. It was the kind of thing that Tasuku didn’t actually want to hear, but it wasn’t like he could avoid it when it was work-related. “I’m going to be fine. It’s not like anything is going to happen, right?”

“Well… Maybe not. But it wouldn’t hurt to be careful.”

Tasuku sighed, a harsher sound that he’d intended it to be. “Look. What can he even do now? Azi Dahaka is asleep. The whole world knows what his ambitions were. He’s taking the Gaen Group into genuinely philanthropic directions, and even completely got rid of the weapons manufacturing section of the company that Genesis had been heading. If he hits the third and final strike, he’s out forever, and he _knows_ that, so what do you think he’s going to do?”

Jack made an uncomfortable expression, as if he didn’t actually want to say what was on his mind. It wasn’t really like he needed to--Tasuku had been getting this exact same treatment from _everyone_. “I’m just worried.”

“So I guess you’ll be really relieved when the event goes perfectly fine, right? I’m probably not even going to see him. He’s a busy guy.”

“Saying something like that is just tempting fate,” Jack said with a sigh, but that was the end of their conversation until tomorrow. After all, tomorrow was the day that the team would be meeting with Kyoya and his head of security to finalize the plans for the big event, and Tasuku would need to focus on nothing but mental preparations for whatever position Kyoya would give him.

Tasuku finished up his nightly routine and as he laid in bed waiting for sleep to come for him, he mused on why he was trying to prepare himself for what role Kyoya would want him to play in protecting him and his guests, but the darkness of sleep came before an answer did.

By the time his team arrived at the actual Gaen family estate, Tasuku’s nerves were completely shot. It wasn’t like he’d had a role to protect Kyoya during his time with him, not exactly, but given that he’d granted Tasuku the title of “knight” certain kinds of assumptions had definitely come into play. At this point, as he filed in alongside the rest of the officers that had been chosen for this assignment, he didn’t know if he wanted to get some sort of special role from Kyoya again, or to be given something that said Kyoya really didn’t care about him at all anymore. It was a confusing feeling, one that left his chest feeling tight, and it felt positively stifling around all these officers he barely knew.

Tasuku had never been on the grounds of Kyoya’s actual home estate before--during his time in Disaster, he’d split his time between Gaen Tower and the worryingly extensive underground base that was situated at Mt. Fuji. Why Kyoya had felt the need to have two different bases for his plans was a mystery for the ages, especially when he actually had a real and proper home to go back to, unlike just about everyone else he’d collected. They’d all been orphans or otherwise badly affected by the Disaster from four years ago and had nowhere else to go but to someone who said that he’d be able to fix everything, lured in by all the other honeyed words he’d surely given to every other person on the team.

Seeing Kyoya’s house felt awkward. Like something he wasn’t supposed to see.

The meeting started, and it was probably a mercy that Kyoya didn’t talk to him or even look at him. It was a slow and arduous thing, as officer after officer got assigned their section of the house and Kyoya’s usual head of security went over every single excruciating detail regarding how to properly cover every single inch of their jurisdiction. Tasuku hadn’t been assigned anywhere yet, but he still kept his ears open just to get a good grip on what standard procedure around here was. It was the kind of careful, measured, exact sort of thing that he’d come to expect from Kyoya, and he was so focused on it that he almost didn’t notice that he was the last one to be assigned.

Kyoya stepped up to him, that same absolutely indecipherable smile he usually had on his face, and said, “You’re going to be my personal guard during the entirety of the event, before, during, and after.”

Tasuku just stared at him for a moment. “Sorry, could you say that again?”

“It’s been decided,” said the unnecessarily burly woman that was Kyoya’s head of security, “that you, Ryuuenji Tasuku, are the only suitable candidate to keep Master Kyoya properly secure during the party. I understand you have prior experience in this?”

Tasuku flashed a glance at Kyoya, who was still just smiling that irritating smile of his. “Um, something like that.”

Her gaze was cold and harsh, and reminded Tasuku of a certain icy someone who felt conspicuously absent from Kyoya’s side. “You might be a so-called prodigy, but understand that absolutely no mistakes are going to be allowed here. If you--”

“Don’t worry,” Kyoya interrupted with that same smooth, elegant way he did everything. Everything about the way Kyoya was carrying himself felt so familiar. “He’s the one person you can trust to not let anything happen to me.”

She made some sort of derisive sound, but otherwise said nothing to contradict him. “I’ll leave you two to discuss the details. I need to make sure none of these other _officers_ are slacking off.” And she was off before Tasuku could even formulate a scathing remark to throw at her about how a private security company could never match up to the people he worked with, so he just satisfied himself by glaring at Kyoya.

Kyoya, who was still smiling. Not the smile he wore for crowds and TV cameras and his latest public appearance in the form of announcing that he was going to be using his vast wealth to start buying and renovating abandoned buildings around the country to turn them into housing for the homeless. It was the smile that Tasuku had only ever seen on his face when it was just the two of them, and it was one that he hated whenever it wasn’t being turned on him. “There’s no need to look at me like you’re about to ask me if I’m up to something.”

“I’ll just state it, then. You’re up to something.” The words didn’t come out quite as harshly as Tasuku wanted them to be.

Kyoya, of course, just laughed softly in response. “Sure, if you’re going to be that direct about it. This event, going out of my way to secure some officers from the Card Office, hand picking you specifically--all of it was just a setup to talk to you again.”

Tasuku clenched his fists, not sure what kind of reaction Kyoya wanted from him. To act grateful? Repulsed? It wasn’t like it was the first time Kyoya had gone through ridiculous amounts of effort just to talk to Tasuku--he’d been willing to corrupt the Buddy Police from the inside out just for the chance to talk to him, and that had to have been way more effort than just...organizing the kind of event for rich people that would need extra security. It was the fact that it was plausible--the idea that Kyoya had done all of this just to see him again--that felt so...painful.

He’d tried something similar at the tournament being held for Gao, asking Tasuku to take on the role of his knight again. And Tasuku had, of course. They hadn’t said a word about the fact that Tasuku had held onto things like the deck that Kyoya had given him, but now Tasuku just felt painfully aware of how that must have looked. So he didn’t say a word, not wanting to betray a single one of the complicated emotions that were building up in his chest.

So Kyoya broke the silence, in exactly the way that Tasuku should have expected him to. “Is that what you wanted me to say?”

Tasuku scowled, and if it wouldn’t have gotten him fired a second time he would’ve decked Kyoya right then and there. Not that he necessarily wanted to punch Kyoya, but rather the part of him that was feeling so disappointed by those words.

“It wasn’t just to see you,” Kyoya said, his smile widening, “but it _was_ a good excuse to.”

The urge to punch Kyoya did not diminish, but it did get redirected somewhere else. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I wanted to see you again, Tasuku.”

There wasn’t a single sound between them but the heavy ticking of a pendulum clock hanging on the wall. Tasuku waited, second after agonizing second, for Kyoya to ask if that was just what Tasuku wanted to hear, but he didn’t--and on the fifth tick of the clock Tasuku said, “Why?”

“Because I wanted to talk to you, of course. Stop looking at me so doubtfully. I thought we’d come to an understanding the last time we met?”

The tournament, where they’d seen each other face to face for what had felt like the first time in years, even though it had only been a couple months. Where Kyoya had threatened to ruin the entire event, but Tasuku had realized that he didn’t actually want to and had never intended to from the start. People would ask him how he knew that, how he knew that Kyoya had changed, and Tasuku would come up without any explanation--but just like Tasuku had told people, Kyoya apparently had no more ambitions regarding the destruction and recreation of the world.

“I don’t remember that,” he lied, and Kyoya frowned, looking...disappointed. It was an expression he’d never seen on Kyoya, who even in defeat had kept himself as composed as he could.

“I see.”

“Er, maybe I remember a little.” That had backfired a little more than Tasuku had wanted it to. “It...did feel like you’d changed, somehow. Even if you tried way too hard to cover that up.”

“It _was_ something I only wanted to communicate to you. I knew you’d be able to tell.” Before Tasuku could respond, Kyoya turned and started walking down one of the halls of the estate. “Walk with me for a while.”

Tasuku followed along, falling into place at Kyoya’s side annoyingly easily. It wasn’t that it felt natural to be right there beside him, but what else would he call it?

But the Kyoya he was talking to hardly felt like Kyoya at all. Polite, straightforward, direct. Kyoya had never been any of these things before, not around Tasuku, and it was just as confusing as every single other detail about this whole affair. It was probably for the best that Jack and the other monsters had been part of the security detail as well--Tasuku really had been tempting fate, and now fate had led him directly back to…

Kyoya didn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon, and there was technically something more important here than finding out why one of the richest people in the world wanted to talk to him. “Don’t we still need to discuss security details?” Although that was more just trying to avoid the topic entirely.

“Do we really need to? I have enough faith in you.” This disarmingly straightforward Kyoya was having a bad effect on Tasuku’s nerves. “I wouldn’t have picked you if I didn’t think you were the right person for the role. That was true before, and it’s still true now.”

“...Where are Sofia and Rouga?”

“Sofia’s off doing something for someone else, now. I think she might be with the Amanosuzus now, which is definitely going to be a cushier job than anything I could offer her.” Kyoya kept walking...somewhere. Tasuku had no idea where they were going, and all he could really do was stay right there at Kyoya’s side, one pace to the right and one pace behind. “Rouga is somewhere on Danger World, I believe. It seems the Armorknights have effectively adopted him, and for the most part, he lives there now. I haven’t seen him in...a while.” Kyoya sighed, and Tasuku couldn’t see the look on his face. “I hope to have a conversation with them again if I ever see either of them again.”

“Is it the same one as you want to have with me?” Something Tasuku hated--both about Kyoya and about himself--was how easy it was to fall into wondering how important he was to Kyoya, and that ended up manifesting in stupidly transparent ways like this. On one hand, Tasuku knew he shouldn’t really mean anything to Kyoya; he’d been a temporary assistant who had run away from him when everything had fallen apart. On the other, he already knew that he was something special to Kyoya--he’d pulled strings he shouldn’t have even been able to in the Buddy Police just so that Tasuku would consider joining him, and then had immediately made Tasuku into something like the face of his group. He’d been the final key to Kyoya’s plans, he’d been a replacement for Rouga, Kyoya’s previous most important operative, and when Rouga had been kicked out for the first word of dissent against Kyoya’s actions Tasuku had stayed right there with Kyoya.

It had been something like blind faith. He could still remember Rouga growling at him about how he was sounding more and more like Kyoya every single day. And when that faith had been shattered and Tasuku had gone running back to Jack and Takihara and Stella and Kuu, he’d still felt somewhere in his heart that maybe one day Kyoya would come back to him and say the same sweet words to bring him back onto his side. It was _still_ something like blind faith. The same sort of blind faith that apparently, Kyoya held for him, too.

“Not quite. Something similar, maybe, but no, this is just for you.”

Kyoya had led him to a pair of glass double doors, accentuated with some architectural flourish that Stella probably knew the name of, but Tasuku sure didn’t. He pushed one of the doors open and it creaked on its hinges, and behind the glass was a garden that probably would have looked and smelled wonderful if it hadn’t been late fall. Dead or maybe just dormant rose bushes lined a white-stone path that led to an ornate metal table and matching chairs, and Kyoya gestured for Tasuku to take a seat at one. They were far from the main house, and the roses had grown tall enough that if they sat it’d be difficult to tell who was out here in the garden. This was, presumably, about as private a place as Kyoya could offer right now.

Tasuku sat down.

Kyoya sat opposite him, and he opened his mouth to start to say something only to close it again. He looked conflicted, and again Tasuku reflected on how strange it was to see a Kyoya that didn’t seem to be in perfect control of every single situation he was part of. “I think I want to start this by saying my ideals haven’t changed.”

Tasuku’s heart caught somewhere in his throat, and he couldn’t have responded to that even if he’d actually wanted to. Kyoya’s ideals were the exact thing that had gotten him stuck in this stupid situation in the first place, the sweet words and promises that had kept Kyoya stuck firmly in his mind even after every single other person he knew had been telling him that he needed to forget all about Kyoya and everything he’d done. It just wasn’t that easy to forget someone who’d said everything that Tasuku had wanted to hear--that yes, the world was corrupt, and that adults just use and abuse those around them, that something needed to be done to burn away the rot, and most importantly, that _Tasuku_ could help him reach that end goal. Of course, Kyoya’s goal had been something along the lines of collapsing the walls between worlds so that monsters could kill a lot of people, but his ideals and motivations weren’t incorrect, and that was what had swayed Tasuku onto his side. The world was suffering. Together, they could do something to save it.

“I...would hope they haven’t,” Tasuku managed to say after a moment, his voice soft. “They’re things that I believe in, too.”

Kyoya smiled at him again. “Things about them have changed, though. It took me too long to realize it, but Azi Dahaka’s words to me before he fell back into sleep were probably what made me come to this conclusion. I had him, I had all the members of Disaster, and yet I was still trying to do everything all on my own...and that meant resorting to drastic measures that I didn’t really need to use.

“I did want the world destroyed. I thought it was unsalvageable, but of course I would, being the heir to the Gaen name. My biggest rival for the name of CEO was a serial-killing warmonger. Growing up around people like that--having parents who had allowed someone like that to be so powerful--probably...contributed quite a lot to that mindset, and getting chosen by a dragon god that could single-handedly cause the next big extinction event certainly didn’t help. But here I am now,” he said, gesturing grandly to his home and to his dead garden, “with no more dragon and more money than any reasonable person should have...and the reminder that I don’t have to try to do anything on my own.

“Rouga had stayed with me...for my own selfish reasons. Sofia stayed with me because she wanted in on the destroying the world bit. But _you_ ,” Kyoya said and Tasuku held his breath, the sudden focus on him catching him off guard, “you wanted to _save_ the world. So I’d like to ask you again to the same goal, under very different circumstances. Will you help me save this world?”

The second time they’d met, in that base that had been hollowed out of the side of a mountain, Kyoya had said something very similar to Tasuku, and had asked a very similar question. And, just like that moment, Kyoya now held out a hand for Tasuku to take, but this time he just stared at it. Last time, there’d been no other option but to reach out to Kyoya--Tasuku had lost his home, his family, and it had been so easy for Kyoya to become his entire world--but this time, Tasuku still had everything he could want. He’d been waiting for this exact moment for as long as he’d known Kyoya, and now that it was here, all he could do was stammer out, “I--I don’t know.”

Kyoya just nodded and pulled his hand back into his lap. “Understandable. I would like a response at some point, but luckily enough, we’ll be seeing each other again quite soon, won’t we?”

“Y...yeah.” What else could he say? “I’ll… think about it.”

Tasuku wanted to say yes. On that subject, there wasn’t anything to think about. But despite what seemed to be a genuine change of heart in Kyoya, Tasuku still couldn’t get around what he’d known Kyoya to be until now--ambitious to a fault, egotistical, controlling, and willing to see everyone around him as nothing more than a tool to be used. He still had that same kind of blind faith in Kyoya that he’d always had, but this time that faith was something that had already been broken once, and Tasuku didn’t know if he was brave enough to let it get broken again. Maybe it really would be better if he just stayed far away from Kyoya, like Jack and everyone else told him to, and let that faith comfort him like it had in the past. Anonymous tips were from Kyoya, because he wanted to help him. Kyoya’s visits to Gao’s school had been in part to see Tasuku. And so on and so forth.

Tasuku didn’t know why it was comforting to think about things like that, but at the same time, it made sense. Kyoya had been the first person to tell Tasuku he was right, that his sense of justice was true, and that he really _could_ make a difference. The first person to have seen past his picture-perfect reputation and talk to him as if he was just Tasuku, not some sort of fairytale prince or infallible prodigy. He’d tried so hard to live up to those images, but Kyoya had been able to look past that wall as if he already knew everything about it.

And maybe he did, Tasuku mused as he looked over Kyoya again. He looked tired, not just as if he’d just not been sleeping enough, but the same kind of tired Tasuku saw on his own face in the mirror every morning. The kind of tired that comes from working too hard on things that you never should’ve been forced to work on, only to have not a single one of your efforts taken seriously. That kind of heavy, tiring burden.

Tasuku wanted to ask Kyoya something else, but Kyoya stood up from his chair, its legs scraping against the stone painfully. “Well, let’s go back, then. I should at least show you which parts of the estate you’ll need to know the layout of.”

“Right. Yeah.” Tasuku was a little slower to rise, wondering if he could ask these questions before he and Kyoya returned to someplace where they could be monitored and overheard, but the moment passed before he could say anything and he just followed Kyoya back inside. If he said yes here, would he be able to walk beside Kyoya, instead of a little bit behind him?

Tasuku looked out the windows at the dead garden and wondered how it would feel to see it again when it was in full bloom.

The rest of that visit was pure business, with every single thing being said not something that could get used against either of them. Both of them knew how to be professional when it came to the prying eyes of people who wanted to use anything they could against them, and when that head of security came back to check that her master hadn’t gotten mangled by Tasuku in her absence, all she could offer was a judgmental sneer and not a single prying question. The other officers offered the same things they always did, with their questioning glances and disapproving looks, and that was another check on the list of reasons to not agree to Kyoya’s offer--trying to rebuild his reputation _again_ didn’t sound like a fun time to Tasuku. But then he’d look back to Kyoya, who seemed so small and solitary and _alone_ after that little speech he’d given about how he’d realized he doesn’t have to do everything solo anymore, and that was another check on the reasons he should say yes. Just like everything else about his struggles with Kyoya, nothing about this was going to be easy.

Tasuku joined up with Jack again, who, given that he was a flying dragon with a giant knife on his head, had been tasked with overhead surveillance. Apparently his plan was to lurk on the edge of the roof as if he were an oversized gargoyle on a foreign cathedral or something and they laughed about it together on the way home, until he inevitably asked Tasuku what his position would be.

“Uh,” Tasuku said very intelligently, really living up to his low C, high D grades and unfinished homework, “I’m going to be covering the garden entrance.” The lie slipped out of his mouth before he could even think about it, but telling his overprotective dragon parent substitute that he was going to be personally attending to Kyoya during the event would’ve been the worst thing to do after their conversation yesterday. “It probably looks pretty impressive during the right season, but right now it just looks dead.”

In general, lying to another officer about your position in an assignment like this was a bad idea. Everyone not having a general idea of where everyone else was could have catastrophic results, and the mature option would have simply been to admit that he was going to be Kyoya’s personal bodyguard for the entirety of the event, but he’d already said the lie and going back on that would’ve looked even worse. He loved Jack dearly, but having failed him once, he never wanted to do that again. Even if that meant jeopardizing everything.

“Just something simple and low-key, huh? That’s probably for the best. Looks like I didn’t have to worry too much about you after all.” With every single word out of Jack’s mouth, Tasuku’s lie hurt more. “Position hopefully won’t matter too much, anyways. If there was anyone out there who had a thing against Kyoya, they would’ve done something by now.”

“Jack, I know who we’re talking about, but I still think it’s probably a bad idea to talk about how much you’re expecting our client to get targeted or not.”

Jack grunted. “True enough. You should talk to Takihara and Stella tomorrow, since they’ve been worried about you too. You’ve just been a little...off, ever since getting this assignment.”

 _Of course I have been,_ Tasuku wanted to say, but Jack was someone he’d had to keep quiet to about a lot of the things that had happened during his time in Disaster. Part of that was because of the guilt of the fact that Disaster had been where he’d defected to after turning Jack into just another tool to use; Gold Ritter had been a gift from Kyoya, and Tasuku had known that full well when he used it. He and Jack had never really talked about that, and Tasuku didn’t want to. He didn’t want to have to explain to Jack or to _anyone_ why he’d done that.

And of course, the other reason he didn’t want to talk to Jack about what had happened while he was with Disaster was just simply because there’s some things you just _don’t_ tell your dad, right? Like how you just wouldn’t talk to him about your first crush, or how your grades were falling? It felt like the exact same thing.

“Sure,” Tasuku said instead, pushing that entire train of thought to somewhere it could get ignored. “I’ll probably be seeing them and Kuu next time I’m scheduled to go in. They’ll probably be relieved to know nothing big happened.”

That was the thing about lies. Each one you told would just get bigger and bigger until they’d taken a life of their own, snowballing into something that was completely out of control--and this one already felt like it was at that point. It wasn’t really a lie that nothing big had happened--he hadn’t said _yes_ to Kyoya, after all--so maybe as long as he could just stick to that part of the story, everything would be fine.

Soon they were home, and after a dinner that consisted of vitamin water and cold pizza from the day before, Tasuku retreated to his room. Jack had his own section of their apartment, given that he was still a giant dragon, and his nest was an old and now mostly-shredded mattress with a pile of blankets situated in front of a slightly-less-old TV. Tasuku’s room was only a little less messy than Jack’s nest, but at least he usually kept his bed clear. He sat down and laid back, sighing--today had been more of a mess than it really needed to be. It was all Kyoya’s fault, of course. Most bad things that happened to Tasuku could probably be traced back to Kyoya. He dug his phone out of his pocket and held it up, wondering if it would be a good idea to give some people a quick heads-up that he was doing fine, the way he would’ve done any other day.

Today wasn’t any other day, though. Today was a day where he’d had to face the idea of Kyoya wanting him to be at his side again. On his phone was a memento of his time in Disaster--Kyoya’s phone number, which he’d never been able to bring himself to delete--and if he had to scroll past that to contact anyone, he might not be able to keep himself from trying to contact Kyoya, too.

Tasuku sighed, plugged his charger in, and set his phone face down on his desk next to the other mementos he’d kept of Kyoya. They were the only things on his desk that never got touched or moved around, and still sat exactly where he’d put them six months ago--the Purgatory Knights deck that Kyoya had given him and never taken back, and a Dark Core. The one that Kyoya had given to him had broken, but when Tasuku had been given the chance by Sofia, he’d stolen another one off of her. He’d only touched them one time, and that was when Kyoya had asked Tasuku to become the Purgatory Knight again for a single match.

Tasuku picked up the deck, leafing through the cards. It was just a plain fifty card deck, with no flag and of course no buddy copy of Demios. During the six months between when he and Demios had first met and now, the Purgatory Knights had finally accomplished their goal of returning home as celebrated heroes. Demios had taken up the old commander’s sword and that sword’s name as well, and Tasuku wondered what he would say if he could talk to him now. What would the dragon who had seen first-hand what he’d been like at Kyoya’s side say if he knew that Tasuku was contemplating going back to Kyoya again?

Talking to Jack about it was right out, but Demios already knew everything. And although Tasuku hadn’t deserved it at the time, Demios had still allied himself with him and supported him with all his heart. When Tasuku had called on him for aid when Kyoya wanted him to be the Purgatory Knight again, Demios had responded, and maybe he would again, even if it was just for something as petty as this.

Tasuku held one of the Demios Sword Dragon copies in his hand, weighing the pros and cons of trying to call on him, and then just sighed and slipped the card back into the deck. It went back to its spot on his desk--today had already been long enough. He didn’t need to extend the emotional rollercoaster that it had been when all he wanted to do now was sleep.

Tasuku showered, brushed his teeth, and when he flopped onto his bed he fell asleep before he could even shove himself under the blankets. In his dreams, a bouquet of roses told him what his future would be, but by the time he woke up, whatever it had told him had been forgotten.

The big party itself wasn’t until next week, and Tasuku almost predictably spent the entire time until then stressing out about it. He was barely paying attention in class, not that he tended to most of the time, and a lot of his work hours were spent with the other officers he would be working with at the event. He didn’t know any of them very well and when combined with how he’d naturally been the only one who’d been assigned to guard Kyoya specifically, it managed to feel a whole lot like group projects at school where everyone else chose to work with someone that wasn’t him. Even Jack was spending most of his time with the other monsters that had been put on duty, so these sorts of meetings felt agonizingly slow. Takihara, Stella, and Kuu all had their own duties to attend to, so he didn’t get the chance to talk directly to any of them at all before the event itself.

Two hours before the party started, Tasuku and the other officers were on location at the Gaen estate. Tasuku had been led personally by the head of security to Kyoya’s study, where he was then abandoned in favor of making sure everyone else on the team was actually where they were supposed to be. He pushed the heavy wooden door open, and there Kyoya was, sitting on a couch that looked more expensive than Tasuku’s entire apartment building, reading a book. He glanced up at Tasuku’s footsteps against the hardwood floor, closed the book with a heavy snap and stood up, putting it to the side. “You’re here right on time.”

“I mean, of course I am. I’ve already got enough bad marks on my record thanks to you, and don’t need anymore.” Tasuku walked over to him. “What were you reading?”

“An old murder mystery, by an author named Agatha Christie. It’s a little over a hundred years old, but it definitely deserves to be known as a classic.”

“Aren’t mystery novels that old the kind that take place at expensive parties just like this one? If your party has a murder happen that’d be enough bad PR to finally ruin you.”

“It’s a good thing that you’re here to solve it then, aren’t you?”

“ _Please_ don’t jinx this before it starts.” This felt like regular conversation, but every single word between them felt pointed. Veiled threats. It felt like the old days between them, although with Tasuku actually saying more than just single-syllable responses.

Kyoya laughed and gestured to the door. “I’m just saying that if anything happens, it won’t be anything for me to worry about, right? Now, while we still have time, let me get you ready for the party.”

Tasuku followed him out and down the hall, and then he actually processed what Kyoya had said. “Wait, you what?”

“Disgraced though we may both be, I can’t have you standing with me in…” Kyoya ran his eyes up and down Tasuku, and he suddenly felt self-conscious in his regular police gear. “That.”

Tasuku took a step back. “I...am _not_ going to wear armor again.”

Kyoya’s smile widened, looking terribly amused. “Oh, my. Is being my knight again really on your mind that much? I just meant going through some of my old clothing so that you won’t look completely out of place. It behooves security to be discrete, or so I’ve always thought.”

“I--” Tasuku hesitated. This situation felt familiar, and yet so alien at the same time. Every other time Kyoya had asked him to do something, the answer would have always been a simple and easy yes, because there wasn’t any way to say no. This time, though, he had the option to, and it wouldn’t even affect anything--changing into something else wasn’t going to affect the assignment, and saying no wouldn’t hurt anything except possibly what Kyoya thought of him.

“You?”

“...I guess we can look for something.”

It only took about thirty minutes for Kyoya, who apparently had more fashion sense than most of the people that Tasuku had ever interacted with, to put together an outfit for him. A simple white dress shirt, over which went a seafoam-green tie and a silver waistcoat with accents in the same green, and dark blue pinstripe pants matched to a darker navy blazer. All separated it looked kind of like a haphazard mess, but once every piece was together, it looked...really good, actually. Stella would have been proud, not that she’d ever get to see him looking like this. A very important thought occurred to him, though.

“Why do you have clothes in exactly my size?”

“This may come as a surprise,” Kyoya said with an amused grin, “but even I was once as short as you are.”

Tasuku frowned at him, but it wasn’t like he could just pretend the six-inch height difference between them didn’t exist. Instead of trying to argue the point, he just fetched all the essentials from his uniform and applied them where needed on this new look, most pressingly being his radio earpiece. It would only stand out if someone was looking for it, and surely anyone who recognized Tasuku would know why he was with Kyoya, anyways.

“There,” he said, once he was done and his uniform had been folded up and stored in one of the rooms of Kyoya’s labyrinthine house. He smoothed out his suit and looked at Kyoya, who was still just dressed how he always was, and wondered what would happen if he insisted Kyoya change out of that sweater and turtleneck combo he seemed so fond of. “Am I allowed to go out in public now?”

“Well, I suppose so.” Kyoya looked over him thoughtfully, the same way he’d looked over Tasuku when he was still in uniform, and it brought the same self conscious feeling. “It’s nice talking to you like this. You were never so responsive when you were part of Disaster. I think...I like you better this way.”

Tasuku looked away, his eyes eventually fixing themselves on a bouquet of orange flowers he hadn’t noticed before, sitting on a table on one side of the room. “I didn’t have much of a reason to respond to you then, either. I knew that you’d set everything up, from the collapse of the Buddy Police to me abandoning Jack in favor of victory, and I _know_ that the first one was just to show me exactly how bad things had gotten if something like that could’ve happened at all and the second was just...to see how far I’d go if I was desperate, but you still _did_ them. I was so caught up in trying to figure out if I hated you for tearing my life apart or if I loved you for giving me a way to put it back together that whenever you talked to me, I just...didn’t know what to do.”

The words came out in a rush, pent up feelings that had never been expressed before. Tasuku hadn’t talked to Jack, hadn’t talked to Stella, hadn’t talked to anyone about these conflicting feelings. He’d tried to once, and the only response he’d gotten was that anything he felt about Kyoya would probably go away on its own in time, since Kyoya was a villain, a criminal, a _bad person_ \--but none of it had gone away. Of course he hated Kyoya, he wanted to tell everyone; he was the person who ruined his life. But of course he loved him, too--when everyone else had given up on him and abandoned him or turned away from Tasuku because of how ruthless he could really be, Kyoya had still offered him a place to be and said that his sense of justice could be used to save the world. He’d waited half a year for his heart to decide on one or the other but it never had, and even now as he looked at Kyoya, with his apparently sincere change of heart for the better, both love and hate swirled in his chest so harshly Tasuku felt sick.

Here he stood in Kyoya’s house, wearing Kyoya’s clothes, about to act as Kyoya’s personal knight for the third time, and Tasuku still couldn’t put a single word to how he felt about him.

And for once, Kyoya didn’t say anything at first. Maybe part of that sincere change of heart of his, that whole no longer wanting to be all alone thing he’d talked about, meant actually thinking about what he said before he said it. Eventually, he settled on saying, “You’re right. I’ve done things that no one should have ever done. I can’t change the past, but with any luck, I’ll be able to change the future. But if you hate me, then there’s no real point in what we’ve been doing.”

The words felt bittersweet, like tea that had been left to steep for too long only for someone to try and cover that up with extra sugar. That particular kind of bad. Kyoya was making the same mistake that anyone else Tasuku had talked to would’ve made, and it felt strange, realizing that the person he’d given up everything for could be just as wrong and mistaken as anyone else on the planet.

“If I only hated you, I would’ve given you a flat no to your offer in the garden.” Tasuku’s voice could be bitter, too. “I said I don’t know. I still don’t know. I’m trying to be honest with you, and can’t that be good enough?”

Kyoya seemed to contemplate that, too, rolling the words around in his mind. “Yes,” he said, “you’re right. I’m being too hasty. If I need to prove myself to you, I’ll do that.”

Tasuku wanted nothing more than to yell at him to stop being so straightforward and just go back to how things used to be between them, but he didn’t. That wasn’t what either of them needed to hear. Despite their history together and despite the fact that he’d just spilled his guts to Kyoya when he still didn’t know a single thing for sure about how Kyoya felt about him, there was still something safe Tasuku could fall back on--consummate professionalism. “We should be finishing our preparations for the event.”

“Yes, we should. We got very severely off track, and I think we can finish this conversation some other day, when we aren’t as pressed for time.” When Kyoya smiled again, it was the smile he used with everyone who wasn’t Tasuku. “Come with me, and I’ll show you how the main hall has been prepared.”

The mood between them had been completely soured, but if Tasuku could have rewound time by a few minutes he would’ve let things play out the same way. He still fell into step with Kyoya easily, one pace to the right and one pace behind, and it still felt natural to be at his side, but it was satisfying to leave Kyoya having to actually think about the consequences of his actions.

They were both silent on the way to the main hall, and Tasuku was comfortable with that. The large wooden double doors leading into it were both kept wide open, and inside were staff that were trying to double or triple check that everything was perfect before guests began to arrive, along with an orchestra that was currently playing a soft piece as a last-minute warmup. There was an open buffet of food, and the whole display dripped with so much money that Tasuku felt uncomfortable being present here. He took half a step closer to Kyoya, and stayed that close as Kyoya went to each individual member of his staff for final checks, and to praise each one for the good work they were doing. By the time he was done it was thirty minutes before the party itself was supposed to start, and the earliest of guests had just started to arrive.

“It’s difficult,” Kyoya said absently, “trying to be a good person. When you give up on just destroying everything, you have to put all the more effort into making sure your impact on the world is going to mean something.”

His ideals to change the world for the better really hadn’t changed, and it was making it hard for Tasuku to keep hating Kyoya. “I think you’re doing well.”

Kyoya turned his head to him and smiled, and it made Tasuku wonder if they’d met under different circumstances, how would he feel about Kyoya? Would he still feel this same complicated mix of love and hate, or would he just feel one or the other? Or would he just not feel anything at all for him, with their paths never crossing in the way they’d need to?

That silent thank you was the last bit of communication they got before people started talking to Kyoya. Charities, research societies, and other business owners would approach him and talk with him, praising him for the advances he’d made in the Gaen Group’s public image all while carefully avoiding the topic of why Kyoya had needed to fix things up in the first place. Tasuku could hardly follow the conversations, but he could at least tell that underneath their pleasant and polite words there was scorn for Kyoya, who in the eyes of these adults was no more than just a child trying too hard to be one of them, and even more than that, a desperate greed for his money. Kyoya conducted himself politely and elegantly, dodging offers and deals while still presenting the idea that he _might_ be interested, just not right now. It was just like watching any other pushy salesperson interact with a customer, and if Kyoya had had to deal with years of this kind of treatment, Tasuku could sort of understand why Kyoya had thought that drastic measures were needed to get rid of the corruption among them. Not a single one of them respected him or anything he’d done, and just wanted to use him for more and more power. That was just how the adults of this world viewed everyone else; something to be used.

Eventually there was a brief lull in the conversations and Kyoya sighed softly, looking weary. “On second thought,” he said to Tasuku, “maybe inviting you to this wasn’t the best idea. Instead of showing you my good side, you’ll just get to see all the people I could’ve been.”

“That’s not true,” Tasuku said, and Kyoya’s eyes turned to him. The look on his face was almost expectant, but Tasuku didn’t know what Kyoya wanted to hear. “At least you’ve always wanted to change the world for the better.”

Kyoya smiled, and Tasuku felt like he’d made the right decision.

“ _Mister_ Gaen!” A haughty voice rang out, and the two of them looked over in the direction it had come from. Walking over to them was no one less than the heiress to the Amanosuzu Group, Amanosuzu Suzuha, and at her side she had two other girls. One of them was, just as Kyoya had predicted, Sofia Sakharov looking as cold and passionless as she always did, and while the other one looked familiar with her long navy blue dress and shoulder-length orange hair, Tasuku couldn’t put a name to her face. “It’s been months since the last time we talked, and your idea of trying to put things back together is to simply invite me to an event as impersonal as this! Really, the nerve of you!”

“My sincerest apologies, Lady Amanosuzu.” Kyoya bowed to her, a sight that felt more alien than anything Tasuku had ever seen before. “I was only thinking of your reputation. I’m sure it would have been _disastrous_ for the lady of the hour to be seen in the company of one such as myself. Just think of the scandal.”

Suzuha just laughed, smiling brightly, and Tasuku could feel himself staring at this absolutely bizarre display. Kyoya engaging in normal, friendly teasing felt like something from another planet, but here he was, acting like a normal person who actually had friends. “Lady Suzuha and Master Kyoya are childhood friends,” Sofia said, snapping Tasuku’s attention to her, her tone still as clipped and terse as it always was. “This fact continues to confuse me as well, but try not to let it show on your face so much.”

“Oh yes, of course,” Kyoya said, turning back to Tasuku. “Allow me to introduce you. This is Amanosuzu Suzuha, the heir to the world’s largest transportation-manufacturing conglomerate. Suzuha, this is Tasuku, but you already know him.”

Tasuku nodded, trying to look less confused and more composed. “Uh, it’s good to meet you. We’ve...encountered each other a few times?”

“Oh, Tasuku! I wasn’t expecting to see you here today!” Suzuha smiled at him, and he nodded to her again. “You look as handsome as you always do.”

“Um, thank you.” Tasuku averted his eyes, not really being sure where he was supposed to look right now. “But Kyoya was the one who picked this outfit out for me.”

That had been exactly the wrong thing to say. Sofia raised one eyebrow, Suzuha raised both, and the orange-haired girl delicately put one hand to her mouth in surprise. “Why, Kyoya!” Suzuha’s voice had a mischievous tone to it, and Tasuku didn’t like that even a little bit. “So you’re too worried about the scandal when it comes to me, but here you are flaunting a relationship with the star of the Buddy Police! I can’t _believe_ you didn’t tell me about it!”

Immediately, Tasuku’s face caught on fire and he tried to stammer out a denial--he hadn’t meant that at _all_ \--but Kyoya covered for him. “Tragically, you’ve misunderstood. He’s just here as hired security for the night, and I didn’t want him to be hanging around me all night in uniform. Not being able to blend in with the crowd at an event like this when it’s his first time would’ve just had people staring at him for all the wrong reasons.”

“Oh, I see.” Suzuha looked disappointed for some reason, and Tasuku didn’t want to know why. “Well, better luck next time!”

“Kyoya,” Tasuku started to say, “what’s she talking--”

“Speaking of security,” Kyoya interrupted, “it’s good to see you again, Sofia. You’re looking well.”

Sofia made some sort of disdainful noise at him, but bowed her head regardless. “I’m working with the Amanosuzu family now. Lady Suzuha’s other attendants stand out far too much if she’s just going about her normal day to day business, so I’ve been hired to make sure she’ll always be safe.” Her voice was flat, but there was something to it that Tasuku had never heard from her while she’d been with Kyoya. “I’ll be transferring back into Aibo Academy at the start of the next school year, for her last year.”

She glanced over at the orange-haired girl, who still looked naggingly familiar, and Kyoya did the same. Sofia’s voice had been restrained, but Kyoya’s voice sounded like he was having to actively keep himself from...something. “And who is this? I don’t believe we’ve...met before.”

It was at that moment that the pieces clicked into place. Of _course_ Tasuku didn’t recognize her--he’d only met her once, in the underground Mt. Fuji base. That was Kuchinawa Terumi, the girl who’d used Legend World with Medusa, who had failed Kyoya and had her memory erased by Sofia as punishment. And now here she was again with Sofia and Kyoya and Tasuku, three former members of Disaster, smiling happily at Suzuha’s side without realizing a single thing. Tasuku hadn’t even been involved in that situation or Kyoya’s final decision but guilt still suddenly welled up in his chest, wanting to confess every single thing he knew to her.

“This is Terumi,” Suzuha said, completely unaware of the tension between the three other people around her. “You should remember her, actually, since she was part of my team during the tournament _you_ put together. It seems during the tournament, something happened to her, and she lost...a large part of her memories. I found her wandering around and tried to help her put things together, but…” She sighed and shook her head. “The name Kuchinawa Terumi was an assumed name, and all attempts to hunt down her background failed. But,” Suzuha said with a confident smile, “she’s made the decision to simply continue on happily. What are memories of the past when memories of the future are so much more vital?”

Terumi curtsied to Kyoya, who nodded his head. The look on his face was completely blank. To Tasuku’s right, Sofia was standing as still and silent as a statue, watching their exchange. Maybe she was watching it with the same kind of expectations Tasuku had--what would Kyoya do when faced with someone like her, someone whose life had been shattered into pieces by his actions in a way that couldn’t ever be repaired? “My name is Kuchinawa Terumi,” she said with a bright smile on her lips. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Mister Gaen! Miss Suzuha has told me a lot about you.”

“I wish I could say the same, but as she mentioned earlier we’ve been out of touch for a while. It’s good to meet you, Terumi.” He finally let himself smile, but it still looked restrained. “What’s happened to you is tragic, and I sincerely hope that you can recover your memories. But even if you don’t, you’ll be in good hands with Suzuha. I’m sure you already know this by now, but she’s one of the kindest people I know, and she’ll do everything in her power to help you.”

“It’s true! I really can’t thank her enough for everything she’s done for me.” Seeing Sofia again clearly hadn’t done anything to restore her memories, and seeing Kyoya again hadn’t done anything either. Given that they’d been erased by magical means, there probably wasn’t a single hope in the world that she’d ever get them back. That single, simple fact seemed to weigh heavily on all three of them, not just Tasuku, because no matter how heavy the guilt they felt was, nothing could actually be done to help her. “Luckily, it doesn’t seem to be affecting my life very much, and I’m very happy to be here with Miss Suzuha and Miss Sofia. I think attending a party like this is something the old me would have never been able to do!”

“I’m glad to have been able to provide that chance for you as well. A friend of Suzuha’s is a friend of mine, and my home will always be open to you.” Kyoya’s smile had never felt more fake, but not in a dishonest way. It was more just...brittle. “...You said the name Terumi was an assumed one, right?”

“That’s right,” Suzuha said. “I went digging as far as I could and still couldn’t come up with who she might have been originally. I’m guessing the name was given to her by someone.”

Kyoya, the very person who had given her that name, turned his head to Terumi again and asked, “What do you think of it? Or of the person who might have given it to you?”

Terumi tilted her head, mystified. “That’s a weird question. I guess I’ve never thought about it before. The past doesn’t matter much to me at all anymore, and I’d much rather just look at the future and everything I’ll be able to do in it.” She smiled, and Tasuku felt like the only one to notice Kyoya’s hands clenched at his sides. “I do like the name, though! If someone did give it to me, I’d say they have pretty good taste.”

“Well, at least you like the name. My apologies for asking you such a strange question.”

The trio’s conversation continued, but Sofia just made a disgusted noise that only Tasuku heard. “He’s really trying to convince people he’s changed for the better, isn’t he.”

“Do you think he hasn’t?”

Sofia flicked her eyes to Tasuku, and she sniffed. “No. I don’t think he’s changed. I don’t think someone like him is capable of changing. If you’re still here with him, I don’t think you’re capable of changing from who you used to be, either.”

“What are you talking about?” Tasuku turned to her, frowning. It wasn’t that he wanted to defend Kyoya’s honor or anything, but he’d expected different from someone who had been at his side for so long.

"Do I really have to spell it out for you? So much for being the pride of the Buddy Police." She grinned, a nasty, malicious sort of look. “Ever think about the names of the other Disaster members? Let’s see, there was you, Gremlin, Terumi, Rouga, the Grim Reaper, Davide, and of course myself, and then Elf and Shido, but they weren’t orphans or abandoned like the rest of us were. But you know what united the rest of us? Because it wasn’t just that we all had a similar background.

“When we joined him, he gave each of us a new name. Who we’d been before didn’t matter, because we belonged to _him_ now. It wasn’t any different than a little kid writing his name on his toys. Did you know that Rouga was originally given to him as a gift by his parents? And _that's_ the kind of person you want to be giving all this extra time to? You never even knew him as well as the two of us did.” Sofia shook her head. “He didn’t do what I wanted him to, so I left him. Rouga did the same thing, and I thought you’d be smart enough to as well. But I guess you weren’t even smart enough to avoid him in the first place.”

Tasuku said nothing. What was he even supposed to say to something like that? He could defend himself or he could defend Kyoya, but Sofia clearly didn’t care about if he did either right now. He glanced over at Suzuha and Terumi again, seeing both smiling happily, and instead asked her, “Why are you still using the name Sofia, then?”

“Lady Suzuha already knew me by it. It’d be a pain to try and explain things to her if I wanted to change things, so I can keep using it for a while longer.” Sofia shrugged, brushing off the question. “I don’t know how he got you under his thrall again, but you should double check to make sure you’re actually yourself to him.”

Tasuku thought back to how easily Kyoya had been able to read him, to look past who everyone else thought Tasuku was and address him directly. If he’d been able to do that before his supposed change of heart, how was Tasuku even supposed to judge that? “Of course I am,” he said firmly. “You don’t need to worry about things you’re not involved in.”

“Whatever you say.” She grinned again, and it was still a cruel kind of thing. “You always did have more faith in him than anyone else. But then tell me, Purgatory Knight, what does he call you when the two of you are all alone?”

Tasuku looked right into her cold, icy blue eyes. “He calls me Tasuku.”

Sofia just shook her head again, looking disappointed in him. “You’ll just have to learn on your own time, I guess.”

And with that she turned away from him and back to the rest of their group, who had apparently been so engrossed in their conversation that the little discussion the two of them had just had gone completely ignored. “Again, it was wonderful to meet you, Terumi. I hope I’ll see you again soon.” Kyoya was no longer as tense as he had been at first with her. “And...sorry to bring the subject up again, but if you think it’s possible that you’re one of the orphans of the Disaster, you should be able to investigate those lists if you can get ahold of police information from around that time. You’ll find some familiar names in there, though, like my own.” His smile was kind. “Only if you want to keep trying to find out who you used to be, though.”

“Thank you very much for the suggestion,” Terumi said, “but there’s no need to worry about that. I’m pretty happy with being Terumi!” Kyoya nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind if I change my mind, though.”

“Goodness, Kyoya. You’ve gotten so much more generous. You always have had everyone’s best interests at heart, though, so I guess it was just a matter of time.”

“I’m glad I have your support, at least. I’m doing my best to get back on my feet, but it’s being more difficult than I expected.” Kyoya sighed and shook his head. “You make a few little missteps and suddenly they’re all anyone can talk about.”

“Those weren’t _little_ ,” Suzuha said, rolling her eyes. “It’s only because I know you as well as I do that I can still consider you a friend, you know. I’m sure you’ll be able to find your place again eventually, given that you’re better at convincing people of things than anyone else I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m not sure that was a compliment, but I’ll take it.” Kyoya glanced around the room. “By the way, is Mary Sue here? It feels odd seeing you but not her.”

“Oh, yes, she’s right here.” Something behind Tasuku’s eyes shifted, and then there was an elegant ball-jointed doll sitting on Suzuha’s arm, with long black hair and a vividly pink dress. Or maybe it had been there the whole time, and he just hadn’t noticed it. “She’s quite enjoying the party you’ve put together, especially the food. You always did offer only the highest quality.”

Kyoya offered his hand to the doll, and its porcelain joints creaked and clicked as it reached out to place its own tiny hand on his. “I’m glad you’re enjoying things, Mary Sue. As always, if I’d known you were coming I would have prepared a gift just for you.”

The doll seemed to giggle, which was an altogether unsettling noise from something that shouldn’t be alive and whose mouth didn’t even move. “She was telling me earlier that you don’t seem to have Azi Dahaka anymore. So he really did fall asleep, then?”

“Yes.” Kyoya brought his hand back, and so too did the doll. He stared at it a bit, this doll that seemed to be Mary Sue, and then asked, “Suzuha, have you ever considered using Mary Sue’s powers to make things work in your favor? She _is_ a reality-warper, after all.”

“Hah! I never have, not with any serious thought.” With her free hand the stroked the doll’s hair. “I plan on making everything work in my favor through my own efforts. I will prove to the world that I am worthy of being who I am on my own merit! That’s why Mary Sue likes me so much, you know.” The little doll leaned up and pressed its painted lips to Suzuha’s cheek. She smiled at it, and Tasuku wondered just exactly what kind of relationship the two had. Jack was something like his father figure and Kyoya and Azi Dahaka had been partners in crime, but these two seemed...to have something very, _very_ different. “Well, this all has been fun, but unfortunately there are other people attending that I need to talk to before the night is through. I’ll come talk to you again later, Kyoya!”

They said their goodbyes and the doll seemed to vanish into thin air at some point during them, and Tasuku watched as the trio walked away. He couldn't quite hear it from the buzz of conversation around them, but Sofia said something like “Watch your step, Lady Suzuha,” and took her hand, leading her carefully through the crowd.

“Well,” Kyoya said, “that was unpleasant. If I’d known Suzuha would bring Terumi here, I wouldn’t have invited her.”

Tasuku had to agree, but he wasn’t about to say that out loud. “How are...the two of you friends, anyways? I didn’t think you actually had any friends.”

The words were out of his mouth before he even thought about them, and for a moment Kyoya looked like he’d been slapped. And then he had this huge grin on his face, another expression that Tasuku had never seen on him before, and started laughing so hard he doubled over, drawing looks from all the people around them. “I really _do_ like you a lot better like this,” he said in between his laughter. “I can’t remember the last time anyone’s ever said anything like that to me!”

“I--I, um, I’m sorry for insulting you. That...really wasn’t what I meant to say, I promise.”

“Well, it’s not like you’re wrong!” Kyoya was still smiling broadly. At least there was that. “To the tell the truth, we only met because of our parents. We were around the same age, and we were both going to be inheriting the business. It only made sense for us to meet as early as possible, so that any future partnerships between us would work out smoothly. My parents were casualties of the Disaster, so I ended up inheriting it much earlier than I should have, but we’ve still talked extensively about what we want to do together. She’s a very reliable business partner.”

Tasuku nodded, but the whole time that Kyoya had been talking, his chest had slowly been tightening painfully. He felt all these intense things for Kyoya, and yet he still knew almost nothing about him. Even Sofia had known about the friendship the two of them had, but Tasuku didn’t know a single thing about who Kyoya was outside of...being Kyoya.

The music in the air stopped, and changed to a new piece, and Kyoya seemed to note the expression on Tasuku’s face. “Well, Tasuku. May I have this dance?”

That snapped Tasuku immediately out of his slowly-spiraling thoughts. “Huh?”

“I’m tired of talking with business partners and people who only think about money. But of course, I can’t just go off alone without you to protect me.” Kyoya was doing what he always did, crafting an excuse for what he was doing out of nowhere. “I’d hate for there to be another bad mark on your record because of me.”

Maybe he really had seen how Tasuku was feeling, or maybe he’d just overheard the conversation that he’d had with Sofia. Whatever the reason, it seemed like Kyoya was trying to offer a genuine invitation to get Tasuku’s mind off of things for a little bit, and he would’ve accepted it, if not for one major problem. “I don’t know how to dance.”

“You’re in luck, because I do. Just follow my lead, and you’ll be just fine.” He offered his hand to Tasuku. “So, Ryuuenji Tasuku. How about it?”

Tasuku hesitated for only a moment before taking Kyoya’s hand and letting himself be led deeper into the crowd, to the center where other couples were dancing together. Embarrassing though it was, he obeyed Kyoya’s soft instructions to face him, to put his hand on Kyoya’s shoulder, to let Kyoya take his other hand--and when Kyoya put a hand on Tasuku’s waist, even though he _knew_ that was just how the partners were supposed to stand, he felt his face heat up. “Can you--can you put your hand anywhere else?”

“Well, if you insist.” And Kyoya pulled Tasuku closer, moving his hand to the small of his back. This was in no way better, but it wasn’t like he could complain now. At least between how close they were and how much taller Kyoya was, there shouldn’t be any way for him to see Tasuku’s blushing face. “Now, you just need to follow what I do. It’s just a simple three-step waltz. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

The first few counts were awkward, but soon enough Tasuku found his rhythm, and as he found his rhythm he also felt less embarrassed. It didn’t take long for them to be weaving and dancing around the floor together, and it really was a lot simpler than Tasuku had ever thought it would be. It wasn’t that he’d ever fantasized about dancing with someone like this, but with the music playing in the background and the rose-soft smell of whatever expensive hair products Kyoya used, it still managed to feel distinctly like a fairytale.

But even with all of this, Tasuku couldn’t get the thoughts that were weighing him down off his mind. Kyoya was someone incredible; someone who had been born into wealth and power, someone who had people like Suzuha or Sofia or anyone else from the people in the crowd surrounding him to be with, someone who was so charismatic that he could reclaim his place in society so easily when Tasuku was still desperately trying to claw his way back into the good graces of everyone. And yet it was this same amazing person, whom he hated and loved in equal measure, who had reached out to Tasuku and said that _he_ was the amazing one. He let his head lean forward, resting against Kyoya’s chest, and said exactly what he was thinking. “Why did you choose me?”

“To dance with? Well, I couldn’t just bother Suzuha again, and she also prefers to lead.”

“No, I mean… Why me? You could have convinced anyone in the world to join Disaster. You _did_ convince everyone in the world that you were right, at least for a while. Why did you put so much work into contacting me specifically? Why did you seek me out?” Even as they talked, they continued dancing, so close and with voices so quiet that no one would’ve been able to overhear them. “And now all of this. You’ve approached me time and time again, helped me, and even now you’re offering me the chance to try and save the world again. Why...me?”

“Hmm.” That was the only sound Kyoya made for the next three steps, and Tasuku felt so tired. Tired of Kyoya and tired of himself. “It’s because you seemed similar to me, I suppose. Family lost in the Disaster. Forcing yourself into a position that only an adult should have occupied when you were still just a child. But most importantly, it seemed that you and I shared the same conviction for wanting to change the world. I’d never met you until that day on the cruise ship, but even that was something I’d planned. I wanted to see you in action, just so I could see if I was right, and I was.” Their movements never slowed. If he were to go just by their dancing, Tasuku would have to admit that the two of them were perfectly matched. “You factored into my plans ever since the beginning. You had always been the key to everything.”

Tasuku hadn’t felt this vulnerable since the days after the Disaster, when he’d been stuck wandering a mountainside all on his own. He hated the feeling--vulnerability just made him feel like a child, and it stung bitterly after all the effort he’d made to grow up fast enough to be able to protect others and stop being protected. But here he was, hoping to hide away from the world and from his own emotions in Kyoya’s words. Whether or not he was important to Kyoya was something that had weighed so heavily, but here he was, getting it confirmed. It suddenly felt childish that he’d ever wanted to feel special to Kyoya in the first place, and he felt childish even as he said, “Is that true?”

“I don’t have any reason to lie to you. You could ask Sofia about it, but she might not give you a straight answer anymore.”

Tasuku had always had faith that he was as important to Kyoya as Kyoya was to him, but hearing it out loud made his heart want to burst out of his chest. He could’ve let himself fall solidly in with just loving Kyoya and nothing else, but another part of his heart pointed out that if he was really so important to Kyoya, then why had he done all the things he had? Why had Tasuku’s faith in him ever been shattered?

Tasuku regretted not saying no to Kyoya when he’d first had the chance. Now that he’d heard all of this, he _couldn’t_ say no, but he couldn’t say yes, either. He had absolute faith in Kyoya, but he still was doubting everything he’d said. Nothing in this world could be simple, and trying to sort out how he felt for Kyoya was the most complicated thing of all.

Eventually, the piece the orchestra was playing ended, and the two of them retreated to a far wall to rest. The party continued ever onwards, Kyoya no longer being able to escape the people who were vying for his attention, and Tasuku couldn’t escape watching how tired Kyoya looked as the night progressed. Suzuha’s group came to talk with them another few times, and together they sampled the food at the buffet, with Tasuku content to just hang back and not say much to anyone. He exchanged some small talk with Terumi, talking about cards and Kyoya and Suzuha, and shared nothing with Sofia but a few glances, still reflecting on their conversation from earlier. Time advanced slowly, but sure enough, people slowly started filtering out, until there was no one left but Kyoya, Tasuku, and the rest of the staff.

Kyoya walked him back to the room with his things, but closed the door behind them instead of just waiting outside. “Do you have an answer to my offer yet?”

“I’ve been thinking about it this whole night,” Tasuku said, pulling off his coat and folding it as neatly as he could, “and I still don’t know. But I...want to say yes.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Why should I?” Tasuku countered, unbuttoning the waistcoat and undoing his tie. “But I do want to give you a decisive answer. Just not right now.”

Kyoya pulled his phone out of his pocket. “It’s a good thing I held onto your contact information, then. I’ll assume you need mine again?”

Tasuku almost tripped over his feet. “No need,” he said quietly, thinking about how he had Kyoya’s phone number memorized better than his own by now, “I still have yours, too.”

He shooed Kyoya out of the room so he could finish changing, relieved that this night was finally over and that nothing had happened. The radio line had been completely silent, so it sounded like Jack had been right about how anyone who would’ve wanted to target Kyoya would have done something by now. He hadn’t been the only one on duty in the main hall, but he had been the only one mixed among the crowd, and that was his only hope for no one else having seen the truly embarrassing scene of him dancing with Kyoya.

Neither of them said goodbye to each other. The other officers chatted about how easy that job had been on their way back into town, and Jack asked through his card if Tasuku was doing okay after a long job and class on the same day. Tasuku probably said something about how he was fine, but the truth was he was so tired that he just wanted to sleep for the next two weeks. Tonight had been exhausting in every single way that Tasuku could come up with, and he almost hoped that he’d wake up tomorrow having dreamed this entire night up so that he could redo it to be less tiring.

Jack didn’t question why Tasuku was so exhausted if he’d just been guarding the garden entrance, and Tasuku didn’t ask Jack how his night went, just in case he tried to ask him the same thing. They got home, Tasuku threw himself onto his bed still in uniform, reasoning that he could worry about that tomorrow.

He fell asleep almost instantly, and he did not dream that night.

Tasuku woke up the next morning well after his alarms had stopped trying to wake him up, thankful beyond words that it was now the weekend. He could just lay here in bed until Jack knocked on his door to double check that he was still alive, and that sounded like the perfect way to spend the morning after the mess that last night had been.

He groped around for his phone, thinking that maybe he’d finally be able to contact Takihara and Stella to tell them he hadn’t died while at the Gaen family estate, but the first notification on his lock screen was something that would’ve made him drop his phone if he hadn’t still been in the process of waking up. Just a simple, innocent “good morning” text from Kyoya.

Tasuku rolled over in bed, phone in hand, still staring at the message. It was from a few hours ago, and Tasuku wondered absently if Kyoya thought that maybe he hadn’t responded because he was ignoring him or something. If Kyoya had contacted him anytime before last night, he probably _would’ve_ ignored it, or at least pretended it hadn’t happened until he’d processed the idea that Kyoya had kept mementos of him, too.

He rolled that idea around in his head. Kyoya had kept mementos of him. He’d been too tired yesterday to think about it, but it was hitting him now--when he’d run away from Kyoya, instead of getting rid of all traces of his presence like he’d opted to do with Terumi and Rouga, Kyoya had kept a small reminder of him. Kyoya had kept mementos of him, the same way Tasuku had.

He texted a good morning back, and then shoved his face into his pillow. He wanted to fall back asleep again, anything to get away from the reality that Kyoya might reply soon. He waited, eyes closed, minute after minute for his phone to buzz and for Kyoya to respond, but the response never came.

Tasuku sighed, disappointed, and sat up to actually change out of his uniform and into something more comfortable.

After a quick breakfast (an energy bar, multivitamins, and a glass of juice) Tasuku dropped himself back into bed, and Kyoya still hadn’t replied. It was probably useless to wait for a punctual response from someone as busy as the CEO of an international financial group, but it still ached a little bit to think about. The one good part of this was that he could finally scroll past Kyoya’s number in his phone and send messages to Stella and Takihara to confirm that he wasn’t dead, just exhausted after a big job. Kuu wouldn’t care as much, since a lot of the situation with Tasuku and Kyoya and Disaster had been kept from her on purpose, given she was only ten years old.

Tasuku had been nine when the Disaster itself happened, and it was something he still had nightmares about. He couldn’t remember the event itself very well, but he could still remember the days after, spent wandering a mountainside near where his home used to be. It had been that event that had made Tasuku into who he was now, fiercely independent and willing to go to extreme lengths for the sake of others’ happiness, and now all he wanted was to stop being protected and start protecting, for the sake of all the children like him who had been powerless in the face of such a catastrophic event. But when Tasuku looked at Kuu, who was about the same age he’d been at the time and wanted to grow up too fast and protect other people too, he wanted to do nothing but protect her from the knowledge of how the world really was.

Kuu did still know some of the basics of the situation, and whenever the topic of Kyoya had come up on the news in the last few months she had declared in her strident voice that Kyoya was _a terrible villain who needed to come to justice once and for all, indeed!_ Tasuku felt kind of nostalgic watching her, remembering when Kyoya being a villain had felt like a clear-cut black-and-white issue to him, too.

He ended up sending her a message too, telling her he’d be back to work soon and not to worry too much about his absence. Unlike everyone else he’d messaged this morning she replied with a prompt _i wasnt worried about you anywayyyyyyyyy!_ and Tasuku couldn’t help but smile. She was something like the bratty little sister he’d never had, and he couldn’t have been happier with the new family he’d built.

Tasuku shoved his phone under his pillow, then looked up at the glow-in-the-dark stars he had over his bed. It was still mid-morning so they were almost invisible against the ceiling, but they were something of a comfort to him, although more in a symbolic way than anything. In his room before the Disaster, he’d had a set tacked up over his bed in just the same way, and after it and everything else had been lost, Takihara had reassured him that it was okay to keep a reminder of what he used to have, even if it felt childish.

In the past, he’d been able to talk to Takihara or Jack or Stella about anything. He’d never really had anything he _wanted_ to talk about with them, other than asking for help with dealing with the all the emotional fallout that came along with living through the Disaster, but having the option open had always felt comforting. When it came to Kyoya, a problem where Tasuku was finally at a loss as to what to do, he couldn’t ask any of them for help, not without already knowing in advance exactly what they were going to say, and not without knowing exactly how disappointed in him they were going to be for still worrying about him. Maybe Takihara would be a good option--he trusted the man more than almost anyone, and that was in part because he knew Takihara was the kind of guy who still watched tokusatsu and wanted to emulate old-school heroes of justice. But at the exact same time, it was exactly because Takihara was that kind of person that Tasuku didn’t want to say anything that would lead to disappointing him, not when he was someone Tasuku admired so much.

In the end, he didn’t say anything on the subject to him or to Stella. His conversations with them ended up having nothing to do with Kyoya, not even any misplaced worry from them about what might have happened while he was working at the Gaen estate. To everyone outside of Tasuku and Kyoya themselves, absolutely nothing had happened, and Tasuku was completely fine with that conclusion.

Kyoya didn’t text him back until late that night, when Tasuku was working on homework that should have been finished two weeks ago. Just like it had been that morning, it was just a simple goodnight message, but this time Tasuku managed to reply quickly. He waited to see if he’d get any kind of response, but several minutes later and there was nothing. It made sense, Tasuku reflected, that Kyoya was really bad at texting given that the only ‘friends’ he’d had were Rouga, Sofia, and Suzuha. Not that Tasuku could really talk, since his own closest friends were just coworkers.

The week continued like that, with just the barest bits of what people would call communication. Sometimes Tasuku would send Kyoya pictures of stray cats he saw on the way to school or to work, and every couple days, Kyoya sent him a picture of the sunset over the Cho-Tokyo skyline, from high in Gaen Tower. It wasn’t much, but every time he got a message from Kyoya, Tasuku felt like even if they didn’t talk, this strange little arrangement they’d settled into was much nicer than waiting around, unsure if Kyoya even thought about him anymore.

Maybe his heart was finally deciding on how it wanted to feel about Kyoya.

The first week finished and the second started, and on a Tuesday evening, he got a new message from Kyoya-- _Are you busy?_

Tasuku dropped his pencil on a notebook page covered in log functions and sat back in his desk chair.

 _no i’m free right now_  
_did you want something?  
Can I talk to you for a bit?_

Tasuku stood up from his chair and moved to his bed, hugging his pillow to his chest. What reply could he draft here that properly expressed that he’d missed talking to Kyoya, but also hadn’t missed the swirling confusion of emotions that talking to him brought. His fingers hesitated for just a moment before he typed,

_sure i’m down_

Instead of texting back, Kyoya called, lighting up Tasuku’s phone with the default ringtone he’d never bothered to change, startling him so much he almost dropped it. He answered, darting out of bed and abandoning his pillow, caught between trying to check if Jack was still awake and answering with a dismayed, “Hello?”

“Good evening.” Kyoya’s voice was crackly over the phone line. “...Did I interrupt you? You sound busy.”

“No, it’s just…” Tasuku pressed his other ear against his bedroom door--this time of night, his favorite big green lizard would either be asleep or watching dramas very quietly, and in this case, it was the latter. “Didn’t realize you were going to call. Gotta be sure Jack doesn’t overhear us.”

“I guess I...hadn’t considered that.” Tasuku picked up his desk chair with one hand, making sure to keep his phone to his ear with the other, and wedged the chair under his doorknob. It wasn’t likely that Jack would come check on him, but just in case… “Is he asleep right now?”

“No, but I think it’s fine.” Tasuku returned to sitting on his bed, clutching his pillow tight in the corner farthest away from the door. “He’s watching something on TV right now, probably a romance drama. He’s actually a big sucker for them, and tells me I’m being rude if I ever call them cliche.”

“Romance dramas? I wouldn’t have pegged him as the type for those.” Tasuku could picture Kyoya’s amused smile in his head, and it almost made up for not having him here for the conversation. “Azi Dahaka was never all that interested in human culture, but I would read to him occasionally. He did appreciate some of the authors in my library, and would try to solve murder mysteries before they finished. He never got the culprits right, though.”

Tasuku tried to imagine Azi Dahaka--that massive, multi-headed god that could end an era--trying to figure out how a book ended, and just couldn’t picture it. “It’s hard to believe he’d get worked up over something like that.”

“When he was bored, he was just an overgrown housecat.” Even through the interference that came naturally with phone calls, Tasuku could still hear a fond tone in Kyoya’s voice. “His preferred smaller form actually was a lot like a very large cat, but with three heads. He spent about as much time asleep as a cat did.”

“...Tell me more about him,” Tasuku heard himself saying. “I want to know more about him. And you.”

“What brought this on all of a sudden?”

“I...had a conversation with Sofia at that party while you and Suzuha were talking, and she told me I don’t know you nearly as well as she or Rouga does.” That conversation had put a lot more on his mind than just this, but if Kyoya wanted to talk, Tasuku wasn’t going to say no. “I realized that even though I feel so strongly about you, I don’t really know anything about you, just like she said. Do I really know enough about you to...like you? Do I know enough about you to hate you?”

“Hmm...one of those words isn’t as strong as you used last time.” Crap. Tasuku had been hoping he wouldn’t notice. In the last week it’d been getting embarrassing to apply the word _love_ to how he felt about Kyoya, even in his private thoughts and _especially_ in conversation with Kyoya himself. It was just another one of those things that Tasuku didn’t really want to reflect on for more than a few seconds. “But I have to ask if it’s really necessary to sort out something like that when that doesn’t have anything to do with the question I’m waiting on an answer for.”

Tasuku hugged his pillow tightly. He’d been thinking about it a lot these past several days. “Helping you save the world then would’ve been a temporary thing, and something where I wouldn’t have been the only one helping you. But now that you’ve changed your methods and goals...wouldn’t it just be you and me together for a long time?”

Kyoya was silent for a long moment, leaving nothing but the soft static of the phone line to tell Tasuku he was still there. “I suppose,” he said slowly, “that that's exactly what I was asking you for. Until recently I’d always had someone nearby...Rouga or Azi Dahaka, for instance. I guess I’m not as used to doing things all on my own as I thought I was.”

Hearing Rouga’s name again, especially here, stabbed a sharp spike of resentment directly into Tasuku’s gut. It was a petty resentment, but what else was he supposed to feel when he’d given up everything for Kyoya, only for Kyoya to still always seem to prefer Rouga over him? Sure, Rouga had gotten kicked out whereas Tasuku had just run away, but even that and even the memory of Kyoya telling him why he’d searched out Tasuku in particular weren’t enough to stop that childish swell of emotion.

Tasuku shoved that train of thought away from himself entirely. He hated every single thing he felt about Kyoya, from his infatuation to his resentment to his jealousy to his hopes that everything would turn out how he wanted it to, even if he didn’t know how he wanted it to end. Wild and unstable emotions like this were something childish, something he knew he still only struggled with because he was still only thirteen years old and that was supposed to be a wild and emotional time of his life, but he’d been so good at avoiding that before Kyoya had showed up in his life. He didn’t respond to what Kyoya had just said, but instead replied with, “...What did you want to talk about, by the way? Why did you call?”

“I just wanted to talk with you for a while.” Tasuku wished they weren’t having this conversation over the phone. “Maybe the right way to say it is I missed the sound of your voice?”

Tasuku scowled on reflex. “Are you going to ask me if that was what I wanted to hear again?”

“Hm…” He was actually considering it, and Tasuku was in turn considering hanging up on him. “Not this time. Besides, I think you’re right. Despite everything, I don’t know all that much about you, either. You’re still someone I’d like to pursue a longtime partnership with, but that just comes from knowing we both share the same convictions.”

“A _business_ partnership?” The words came out aggressively. Maybe even jealously.

“No,” Kyoya said, surprisingly firmly. “I’m not sure what I’d call it. To use your own words, I’m trying to be honest with you. Isn’t that good enough?”

Kyoya’s honesty had only gone so far in the past. His motivations and conviction had been the only thing he hadn’t stretched the truth of in some way, but maybe this too was part of his change of heart. Maybe, this time, Tasuku was being the unfair one.

He'd been lamenting how everyone in the world but Kyoya seemed to have so much difficulty seeing him as something other than perfect and special, but here he was expecting Kyoya to be perfect, too. Tasuku wanted things to be even this time, and at the same time, he was the one not letting them be that way. Just being honest with each other _was_ good enough--Tasuku would make it be good enough. “Yeah,” he said, feeling that same strange conviction he had six months ago of wanting to change Kyoya's world for the better, “you're right. Now I’m the one who’s trying to make things go too quickly. Let’s go back to just...wanting to talk to each other more.”

“That sounds good to me.” There was a pause, neither one of them wanting to be the first one to say anything. “...I really am happy to talk to you again, Tasuku. I’ve been reflecting on some things since we last met, and I have to admit that I missed you.”

Neither of them were good at admitting things like this, not after years of having forced themselves into adult roles so that people would take them seriously. Letting the mask slip would mean risking being treated like a child again, and for Tasuku, those rare moments had always been bitterly painful. He was sure that for Kyoya, this moment was just as painful, and the least he could do was offer Kyoya the same gesture.

“I missed you, too.”

They talked for a long time together, about anything that crossed their minds. Jack and Azi Dahaka’s habits at home, talk about their day to day lives, details like their favorite foods or books they liked or movies they’d seen. The kinds of things that they really should’ve known about each other after six months of having always had each other on their mind. It ended up being a surprisingly easy conversation, but if Jack’s stupid dramas were anything to go by, the more similar two people were, the easier it was for them to talk about anything. Maybe they weren’t as cliche as Tasuku had always accused them of being.

Eventually their talk got cut short by Tasuku’s _go to sleep now_ alarm going off right in his ear, and they broke things off so that they could both actually get some rest that night. Tasuku had school and Kyoya had work, but they agreed to do this again sometime soon. They were both too busy to make any definite plans, but it was still good enough for now.

Before he fell asleep, Tasuku wondered if he’d see Kyoya in his dreams that night.

Class went well, and so did work. It wasn’t that anything particularly good had happened, but from the moment he woke up to his first alarm, Tasuku felt that maybe today would be a good day. It was a peaceful and easy day, the sun shining brightly, and even the fall chill wasn’t enough to bring down his spirits as he pulled his jacket more tightly around him. Jack hadn’t overheard anything last night, he caught sight of a fluffy white cat he was able to snap a pic of for Kyoya ( _it looks like you_ he'd sent in a message along with it), and his teachers were only mildly exasperated with him for having ignored his homework in favor of talking to Kyoya all night. Things went so exceptionally well, actually, that Stella descended on it like a hawk on prey.

“Tasuku, you’re looking chipper today!” Her voice had the exact same tone that an older sister searching for gossip would have. “Did something good happen today?”

“Today? Not really. I wasn’t able to finish my homework last night, and my teachers were pretty upset about it.” Talking about things like his homework or academic performance with Stella always felt a bit like a loaded topic. Tasuku had a lot of difficulty with things that weren’t just simple arithmetic, and Stella was the one who always looked the most disappointed when he revealed just how low his grades were. “Nothing particularly bad happened, at least?”

“Is that right?” Tasuku really didn’t like how skeptical she looked. “But you’ve been smiling all day! Just a few minutes ago, you smiled really big to yourself! What were you thinking about, huh?”

A few minutes ago, Tasuku had been thinking about the prospect of talking to Kyoya again tonight, even though too many nights of that would probably bring his grades down to where they were completely unsalvageable. He hadn’t even realized he’d been smiling about it. “Nothing in particular.”

“You’ve got a lot of guts to say that to me while blushing, mister.” She sat down with her coffee at the same table at Tasuku, who could feel his cheeks burning even worse at having it pointed out. He kind of hoped someone else would walk up to them and interrupt so that the worst conversation he could imagine wouldn’t actually happen. “So did something happen...yesterday?”

“I just had a nice conversation with someone last night. That’s it. That’s the only thing that happened.” Tasuku looked around desperately for someone whose attention he could catch to try and get out of this, but the few people also in the overly-fancy office break room were busy with whatever they were doing. “It’s not anything big.”

“A nice conversation, huh…” Stella’s eyes were practically glittering with interest. “About what?”

“Nothing.” Stella raised her eyebrows, clearly enjoying this. “It was just about some...things, okay?”

“Some things, huh…”

“Some things.”

“What _kind_ of things?”

“None of your business.”

“Aww, feeling shy?” Stella laughed, and Tasuku was putting this conversation as probably the strongest reason he had to say no to Kyoya. “To be honest, I’m glad to see you looking so happy. I haven’t seen you like this since...back when you first met Gao, I think? You’re always so serious all the time, so it’s good to see you doing this well.”

“I’m not _that_ uptight.” Well, if Stella wasn’t teasing him just for the sake of teasing him, then it probably wasn’t anything to get upset about. She did have a point, at least kind of--he probably hadn’t been doing especially great in the last few months, what with Gao having moved out of the country and the United States having such different time zones from Japan making it hard to talk to him much anymore. Both of them had such busy schedules that communicating at all was difficult, and Tasuku had never been particularly close to any of Gao’s friends so when Gao had left, so had his connection to all of them.

Tasuku wasn’t particularly bothered by things like not having very many friends. At his previous junior high, there had been a handful of students who had made an attempt to befriend him, but it was more out of celebrity worship than anything. After transferring to Aibo a similar thing had happened, with people clamoring for his attention just because he was the closest thing any of them had ever come to a celebrity before. It was probably for the best that his awkward attitude when it came to receiving attention ended up driving them off to just keep admiring from afar, especially when it came down to ruining expectations. Who could have ever expected that the star of their age group had bad grades and tended towards skipping class and foregoing socialization in favor of work? “...Wait, am I?”

“Well, it’s not like being serious about what you do is a bad thing!” Stella sipped her coffee. “If you’ve made another friend outside of work, that’s still a good thing, of course. Although I think it’s more like you’ve got a _crush_ , huh?”

The word was barely out of her mouth before Tasuku rocketed to his feet fast enough to knock his chair back, the legs scraping against the floor. “I _do not_ have a crush on him! I just--”

That knowing look was back on Stella’s face, but more importantly and much worse was the fact that the other people in the break room were now looking over at him. Tasuku wanted to just melt into the floor and his face was burning with shame at having such a childish outburst, but he still had enough of his dignity to say, “Sorry for the disturbance,” without stumbling over any of the words. He brought his chair back to the table and sat down again, glaring wholeheartedly at Stella.

All she had to say for herself was, “You just what?”

“I’m not talking about this with you anymore.” If she was going to be treating him like a child, he might as well act childish about it. He crossed his arms and looked away from her with a huff. “You're acting like a child.”

“I am not! I'm just treating you how I would any other friend.” She put her head in her hands, still smiling at him, and Tasuku would have to keep in mind how bad he was at defending himself against sincere people like her. “So? Who is it? What's his name? What's he like?”

At that moment the door to the break room opened and Tasuku looked over to see his true savior walking in--Takihara, who had been the person to find and rescue him after the Disaster, was here to once again save him from the worst situation imaginable. Tasuku pointedly turned away from Stella to face Takihara instead, who gave him a small wave. “Hey Tasuku, Stella. Almost done for the night?”

“Yes, I'm about to be done. I think Stella has a bit longer to go, though.” She was still working on that coffee, after all, and given her skill in so many areas it wasn't all that surprising that she ended up being saddled with things that were technically outside her job description. “Are you going to be done soon, too?”

“Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm off the same time as you. So what are you two up to right now?”

Stella grinned and Tasuku frowned in the same moment, and Stella said, “I'm being mean to Tasuku!” at the same time that Tasuku said, “Stella is being mean to me.” Takihara, for his part, looked like he was about to start laughing at both of them, but his sense of justice and dignity prevented him.

“You know, I know you two aren't actually related, but it gets kind of hard to believe sometimes.” Instead, he settled for just grinning at both of them. “What’s happened this time around?”

And so Tasuku had to sit with his face in his hands as Stella excitedly told Takihara about how he had a _crush_ on some _mysterious somebody_ , his only saving grace being the fact that despite both of them being officers and something close to detectives, neither of them could connect the dots that would have led them directly to figuring out they were talking about Kyoya. He’d been feeling so certain that if the two of them actually talked, they would’ve been able to figure out the suspicious timing of everything in relation to when Tasuku had just been at Kyoya’s home, but in comparison to the mounting dread in his heart, both of them just seemed to be acting normally about everything. Surely if either of them had figured it out, they would’ve said something, right? They’d both been so concerned about Tasuku before he’d had that job, so maybe that meant they just weren’t thinking about it hard enough?

He sighed, relieved, and Takihara reached out and ruffled his hair--an act that only the person who had saved him four years ago could commit without getting thrown across the room. “It’s nothing to sigh about, don’t worry. It’s not that embarrassing to have a crush on someone.”

At least he’d misunderstood that, too. “It’s _not_ a crush, and it wouldn’t be embarrassing at all if Stella didn’t decide to make such a big deal about it.”

“I’m just saying that’s what all the evidence points to! You agree with me, don’t you?”

Takihara looked between Tasuku and Stella, both of them calling upon his wisdom that came from being older than both of them so that he would make the correct choice. “...She does make a pretty compelling case. Sorry, Tasuku, but you’ve lost this one.”

Tasuku groaned and slumped back in his seat. “You’re all unfair.”

“Unlike Stella, I’m not going to tease you for it, at least.” As always, Takihara was the only person he could rely on. “I just want to wish you good luck in it, and to say that if you want any advice, both of us are here to offer any you might need.”

Stella snickered, a terribly dangerous sound when it came to gossip. “The only reason you can’t tease him is ‘cause you still think the protagonists of that Caardians show are cute.”

Tasuku couldn’t help an immature giggle at Takihara’s expense--the man was twice Tasuku’s age, but even he wasn’t immune to simple things like that. “It’s--that’s completely unrelated to this,” Takihara stammered out, blushing all the way to the tips of his ears. “It’s just that Kiryuu’s actor is handsome, and his character is a genius at physics, and--”

Tasuku tuned them out for a few moments, to ponder on the things they’d just been talking about. Takihara’s words about how both he and Stella were here to support Tasuku felt familiar, and he tugged on that feeling the same way one would pull on a loose string on their clothes, keeping hold of it until it unraveled into what it had been originally. It had been something Kyoya had mentioned when they’d met two weeks ago--how Azi Dahaka had told him that he didn’t need to do everything on his own anymore. At the time the words hadn’t meant much to Tasuku, other than simply being part of the declaration Kyoya was making that he had changed now, but as he looked at himself he realized that he, too, was someone who had needed to hear that exact same advice.

Unlike Kyoya, Tasuku still had Jack--it would be easy to say that as long as he had Jack, he wasn’t doing anything on his own. But there wasn’t a single thing that Tasuku could do to escape the fact that, when he’d been pushed into a corner, he’d ultimately chosen to abandon Jack and fight entirely and completely on his own as long as it still meant he would come out victorious. When Gao had left, Tasuku had chosen to stay alone and solitary, without reaching out to the flimsy bonds he’d formed with Gao’s other friends, and even now, as he watched Stella and Takihara’s friendly bickering, he was still choosing to try and figure out everything all on his own without asking for any help.

That was a stark difference between him and the Kyoya of now. Tasuku was still trying to shut him off from everyone around him in pursuit of the exact same things he always had, always striving to be better and always do what he thought was best for everyone. Kyoya had been like that too, assembling tools he could use in the form of Tasuku and Sofia and the other Disaster members, even seeing Azi Dahaka as nothing more than a means to an end of creating a utopia for all, and when all of those things had been ripped away from him Kyoya had taken a long look at his life and his actions and made the decision to change. Where Tasuku was still hesitating, Kyoya had boldly stepped forth; where Tasuku wasn’t making an effort at all, Kyoya was _trying_.

He and Kyoya were similar, and that wasn’t something that could be avoided. Maybe he’d thought that as long as Kyoya was still the Kyoya he’d always known, then he would always be somewhere that Tasuku could run away to--the mutual understanding that even if they were standing side by side, they were both never going to have something more than the roles of king and loyal knight, both striving towards the same conviction. He’d been so infatuated with that Kyoya, the one who could cut to the heart of any wall Tasuku put up, and then say they were _friends_ in a way that meant that even as special and important as he’d treated Tasuku, there would never be anything meaningful between them. Maybe _that_ was why Kyoya reaching out to him, trying to rely on him, trying to connect with him felt so alien and awkward and...comforting, in its own strange way. Maybe, being with someone who understood him on such a natural and innate level wouldn’t be so bad.

Takihara and Stella were still going at it, so Tasuku decided to try and make his own first real step down the path that Kyoya had pointed out for him. “Um, not to interrupt you two, but… I have a question about the...person I was talking about earlier.”

It felt painfully awkward, as agonizing as trying to snap his fingers off would’ve been, but the pair turned their eyes to him and Takihara asked so very, very kindly, “What is it?”

“So...let’s say that if I did have a crush--I’m not saying I _do_ have a crush, I’m just saying that _hypothetically_ , if I _did_ have one--” Stella started snickering, and Takihara shushed her. “...What should I...do now?”

“Well, in this _purely hypothetical situation_ \--” Stella was still having a field day with this, but at least she was going to offer something only she could give--the romance advice of a nineteen year old. “--I’d say your best bet is to figure out if he feels the same way, right? Dropping hints, or...well, no offense, but I don’t think you could flirt your way out of a paper bag. You can always just ask him what he thinks of you.”

“I, uh, did that already. Sort of.” Tasuku left the details of how that question had come up while the two of them had been dancing together firmly where neither Stella nor Takihara would find out. “He didn’t outright say it, but it was still something along the lines of him thinking I’m...special and important to him.”

“Tasuku…” Takihara’s voice was kind, but it still had that same feeling as the voice teachers would use with kids who were so dense they needed a few extra explanations. “If you already know he feels the same way, then shouldn’t you act on that?”

“Oh, uh.” To be fair. Takihara was right. If he put things that way, then Tasuku was, in fact, an idiot. “I...don’t know?”

“...Well, I guess we all have our first love someday. When you figure out what you want to do, I’m sure he’ll still be waiting for you, too.” Takihara was much gentler with his words than Stella would’ve been, and Tasuku was thankful for that. “You should start working on that soon, though.”

“Honestly! Really, you should just--” An alarm went off from Stella’s pocket, interrupting her. “Ah, dang it! I need to get going. Tasuku, text me about this later!”

In one of the most impressive displays Tasuku had ever seen, Stella chugged the rest of her still-hot coffee, managed a beautiful three-point shot of her cup into the trash can, and then dashed out of the room in her two-and-a-half inch heels. Takihara, who had seen all of this before in his many years of working with the Buddy Police, just shook his head. “...Anyways, Tasuku. Since we’re both getting off at the same time, do you want me to walk you home? I can make sure you actually get a decent meal for once.”

“I appreciate the offer, but no thanks this time. There’s a...conversation I want to try planning out on the way home.”

“Sure, you got it. Please at least _try_ to have a decent dinner tonight, though.”

Everything else passed uneventfully, and Tasuku didn’t even consider texting Stella about his plan for the night. Didn’t tell Jack, either--he got home and immediately made a beeline for his room. He dumped his bag on the floor, blocked his door, and reached for the thing he needed most right now. The thing he needed for this conversation.

Tasuku pulled a copy of Demios Sword Dragon out of the Purgatory Knights deck and held it carefully in his hands. Each card was connected to the monster it embodied, even if that specific copy wasn’t the copy that the monster directly _was_. It was really complicated and Tasuku had kind of spaced out through the explanation he’d received on the subject, but the important part was that even though Demios wasn’t here now, as long as Tasuku had this card, he could still reach out to him.

He’d already considered contacting Demios before, about two weeks ago, but the reason he’d given up then was probably for the same reason he’d avoided asking anyone else for help. He wasn’t going to give up this time, though--it might be painful and awful and agonizing to set his pride aside, but Tasuku couldn’t say yes to Kyoya if he wasn’t even making as much of an effort as him. So, with this connection to the one person who would truly understand everything about his complicated relationship with Kyoya, on having actually been there to witness it, Tasuku sent out a desperate plea to wherever it was the many parallel worlds might intersect--if Demios could just come and help him out again--

The card began growing warm between his fingers, shining with a soft and golden glow, and after a few moments it lifted up out of his fingers and hovered in the air. It had _worked_. Tasuku preemptively covered his eyes just before it shined so radiantly bright that anyone looking at the building from the outside would have seen it--and with any luck, Jack wouldn’t notice the sudden blinding flash from inside Tasuku’s bedroom. The light faded and when Tasuku opened his eyes, Demios was there in his room.

Well, not full-sized Demios. The bonds that connected the different worlds were very tenuous and even more malleable, and a visitor from another world could change their appearance to however they wanted if they weren’t in their home world, within reason. Here on Earth, the world of humans, dragons like Demios tended towards smaller and cuter forms than their homeworld when they weren't active combatants in battle, although other dragons like Jack thought it was undignified and refused to change under most circumstances. Demios, however, was a much larger and sturdily built dragon than Jack, and wouldn’t have even been able to fit into Tasuku’s room if he hadn’t manifested here at about the same size as a large plush doll.

“You're calling on me again, hm?” Demios's deep, rich voice really did not match his current outward appearance. “You know, it's not against the rules to enter a contract with more than one monster.”

“I--I know that.” What with how rare the situation was, though, a lot of the red tape surrounding it wasn't really something Tasuku wanted to get caught in. But even aside from that, there were other reasons he didn't want to make that contract, even if Demios himself was no longer as much of a symbol of the things Tasuku had done under Kyoya. “I feel like it'd be rude to call you out of your retirement more than once to fight, though. At the very least, that's not why I wanted to meet with you this time.”

Retirement wasn't quite the right word for it. After Demios and the other Purgatory Knights returned to their homeland from Darkness Dragon World, they'd come back to a world that hardly remembered them, except for old scholars and the Thunder Knights that had been formed in their memory. Demios had taken up the sword of the Purgatory Knights’ original commander, Orcus Sword Dragon, and effectively said that he and these two swords had no reason to continue fighting--Dragon World no longer needed to defend itself from invaders, and even if they did once more, he only wanted to live a peaceful and pacifistic life now.

He'd agreed to becoming a mentor for the Thunder Knights--somewhere around a thousand years of hands-on combat experience was nothing that Commander Fahne could just ignore--and had begun training a protegé who could take on the ideals of the Purgatory Knights that the Thunder Knights had lost over their long, long years separated. Outside of that, though, Demios wanted absolutely nothing to do with battle anymore, which made perfect sense considering he'd been trapped in a hostile other world for much longer than any natural lifespan should have allowed.

They'd talked more about this the last time he'd asked Demios to aid him, going over things like how much the Thunder Knights had lost over the years and the tension between Demios and Fahne, and how a method to break the curse of undying that still plagued the Purgatory Knights hadn't been formulated yet. It had been an honestly fascinating look into Dragon World politics and there was so much more Tasuku wanted to know about the situation, but none of it was really relevant right now. The important part, really, was knowing that Demios still wanted to help and protect as many people as he could, even young, wayward knights like Tasuku.

“Why did you want to meet me this time, then?” With Tasuku's help, Demios climbed up onto Tasuku’s bed to sit next to him. “It’s late at night here and...you have the door blocked.”

“I don’t really want Jack overhearing this… He thinks I’m doing schoolwork right now.” Tasuku took a deep breath--inhale, exhale--and then said, “It’s about Kyoya.”

Dragon faces weren’t especially good at making expressions humans could recognize, but the look of amusement on Demios’s face was still unmistakable. Why did everyone have that look as soon as he tried to talk about anything involving Kyoya, even Takihara and Stella who didn’t even know who they were talking about? “Wasn’t that the same answer you gave me last time you called on me?”

“I mean--yes, technically, but this time isn’t because I need to fight him or anything. It’s a little bit more...complicated than that this time.”

Complicated really felt like an understatement, but he tried to explain things to Demios as clearly as he could. The last time Tasuku had called on the dragon they’d talked more about who Demios was now--compared to the dull armor he’d had when they first met, it now gleamed in the light, and he seemed to be doing much more happily as well. Other than a brief summary of the situation--that Kyoya was threatening the same things he always did, and that he wanted Tasuku to act as his knight again--they’d barely even mentioned him. This time it was the opposite as he told Demios about everything that had happened between him and Kyoya since the two of them had been partners six months ago. Accepting Kyoya’s help without even trying to get an apology from him, the gut-impulse feeling that certain anonymous tips Tasuku had gotten were from Kyoya, their constant near-misses in seeing each other again at the WBC. How Kyoya had tried to break down the walls between worlds again, and how he’d failed all over again, only to lose Azi Dahaka this time. How the next time they’d seen each other face to face, Kyoya had said without any reservations at all that he’d wanted to see Tasuku the way he’d been at Kyoya’s side, and Tasuku had been able to take on the role again more easily than he’d wanted anyone else to realize.

Which finally brought them to recent events. Tasuku told him about how Kyoya had rigged things to see Tasuku again, asked him to be at his side again...and about the ways that Kyoya had changed, and the ways he hadn’t. Demios simply sat in silence, absorbing all the information that Tasuku was basically just dumping on him, nodding his head occasionally as he listened. It was relieving, somehow, to just finally _tell_ someone everything, instead of skirting around ways to avoid talking about any part of it. Maybe, though, that was just because instead of giving Tasuku the disapproving, pitying look he’d gotten from adults, Demios still regarded him with the respect that their partnership had always involved.

“You're right,” he said, “that is complicated. But I don't think it's quite as complicated as you've convinced yourself it is. The basic issue is you don’t know what response to give him, right?”

“I guess that’s right.” Tasuku sat back, leaning on his hands. “I know what response I _want_ to give him, but I don’t know if it’s the...right one.”

Demios grunted and turned his head, Tasuku moving a little out of the way to avoid getting smacked by the overly-wide horns the dragon had. “What would constitute the right choice, then? What result do you want to come from this?”

Tasuku hadn’t really thought about that yet. The end results he’d envisioned were as simplistic as that in one situation, he would be at Kyoya’s side again, and in the other, he wouldn’t be. But if Demios, wise and old and having gone through more difficulties than Tasuku could even imagine, was telling him to think about the consequences of his actions, he was going to sit and do exactly that.

The consequences of saying no were easy enough to imagine, since it meant that everything would stay exactly the same as they were right now. His family and people who were close-to-family would stay exactly as they were right now, never having to know how much he thought about Kyoya and how seriously he was considering going back to his side. Kyoya would be the only one who knew otherwise, and saying no would mean that he would stay lonely, alone, and without anyone to open up to or rely on. Saying yes would have the exact opposite reaction, with most of the people he cared about losing their faith in him all over again, but at least Kyoya wouldn’t be left all alone in that awful environment. Both options hurt to think about in different ways, and Tasuku kind of wished he could go back to when he’d lost to Kyoya in that secret base hollowed out of a mountain, when his answer to Kyoya’s question had already been picked out for him.

Demios just watched him silently for the long minutes he spent thinking, until he said something. “Would you like me to give you an example? You’re thinking so hard I’m worried you might hurt yourself.”

“Ugh. Yes.” Tasuku flopped backwards onto his bed, still not feeling any closer to what decision he wanted to make. “Is it going to be one of yours?”

“It is.” Demios rearranged himself so that he could more easily sit and face Tasuku. “You already know the old legend about my Purgatory Knights, how we crossed the border between worlds to protect our homeland, only to end up stuck there, protecting the gate between worlds for what felt like forever. But there was a decision that needed to be made when I finally returned, as well.

“It had been a long time since I’d seen my homeland, after all, and one thousand years is a very...very long time. Dragons live and die and are born, structures are built and collapse, wars are fought and won and lost, and language changes and adapts until it’s something completely unrecognizable from what it used to be. Just how _long_ the time we had been away was had never really been something I’d thought about before I’d been given the chance to return home, and then it was as if that enormity of it had fallen onto my shoulders with no warning. From the first time we’d crossed between worlds, every single one of us had made the decision knowing that the chance that we’d be able to return home was slim to none, and now that we no longer needed to so adamantly defend the gate we didn’t know what to do. Just like you are now, we were wondering what decision we should make.

“What if we left our post, only to discover that the world had so drastically changed from the one that we had loved so much that we would’ve given an eternity for it? What if we left our post, only for that gate to be used to invade again? What if the world we loved so much remembered us only as traitors now, if they remembered us at all? Staying in a world with conditions so harsh it had eroded our minds and bodies felt like the safer option. It was what we had known for so many long, long years, after all.” Demios tilted his head, golden eyes staying firmly locked on Tasuku’s. “But the safe option is not what we chose. As we had done a thousand years ago, we decided to step into completely unknown territory, and that was indisputably the better route to have taken. Many things were different and unfamiliar, but many things were still the same. It was easier to adapt to than any of us had expected. For most things, at least…”

“What did you have trouble with?”

“Only being remembered by the Thunder Knights.” Demios sighed. “Fahne had been a childhood friend of mine, and I guess after we passed through the gate he’d taken on the same curse of undying as we had to wait for our return, but his one thousand years spent alive meant that he’d changed...very much. As much as we had, to be sure.”

“Fahne...isn’t a normal Armordragon name, is it? Is it different because of how long he’s been alive?” Tasuku might have been failing his history tests, but it wasn’t like the subject was boring. Just...dry, what with how his teacher tried to cover it. Getting it from someone who’d actually seen things was much, much more interesting.

“He’s from before that naming convention started, and so am I, of course. We’d started using it when our world had first been invaded, as a show of strength, and I guess over the years it became more traditional for dragons to use their weapon-based name instead of their given name, even though that was just something that had come from wartime.” Demios crossed his arms. “That was another thing that we needed to get used to. Culture shock hits surprisingly hard.”

Tasuku was silent for a few moments, thinking about the story Demios had told him. The safe option, keeping things the way they always were, hadn’t been the right one. “...Hey. If you could go back in time, all the way back to before you first traveled between worlds...do you think you’d still make the same choice?”

“I would.” He said it with no hesitation at all. He’d probably thought it about it before, over and over and over again. “If I had never traveled between worlds, I would never have been able to do many things...like meeting you, for one. And I think I would’ve regretted giving up the chance to fight for the world I love so dearly just to hide at home. Sometimes, the regrets that come from not doing something weigh much more than the alternative.”

This all just felt like it was making it harder to decide. Tasuku sighed and started over from the beginning again--which decision would he regret the _least_? Which one would he be able to do the most in?

“If you could go back and choose to have not joined Kyoya the first time, would you?”

It felt like a good thing that Tasuku was already laying down, or else that question probably would have knocked him over. He’d never thought about it before; saying yes to Kyoya had always felt like the only outcome that he could’ve chosen. What if he _had_ said no? A lot of people important to him would have never thought he’d failed them, and he wouldn’t be agonizing over whether or not he should say yes to Kyoya again. But on the other hand, he still would have abandoned Jack in favor of victory, only to then go on and reject the person who had so kindly reached out to him and told Tasuku that everything he believed in was worth it. He would have never met Demios, who had unconditionally supported and protected him during one of the most vulnerable times of his life.

“...No,” Tasuku said, and realized that his mind was made up this time, too. “No, I still would have agreed to join him.”

Demios nodded silently, and with neither of them being especially talkative people, the conversation trailed off just like that. Talking to Demios really had been a good idea. Maybe Tasuku could get the hang of this whole...trying to rely on others thing.

“Hey, Demios?” Tasuku sat up again.

“Yes?”

“Do you still remember your given name?”

“Of course. It’s a memento from my beloved homeland. I wouldn’t give it up for anything.”

“What is it?”

“I haven’t told it to anyone in...ages.” Demios pondered that for a moment, and then gestured for Tasuku to lean closer to him. He did, and Demios leaned up to his ear and whispered it into his ear, as if he were still the youthful dragon he’d been so many years ago, when he’d been frozen in time by a curse.

Tasuku's mind was now made up and he would've gone off to settle things with Kyoya right away, but instead Demios requested that he offer the old dragon a place to rest for the night. It had been late in Dragon World as well when Tasuku had called out to him, and Tasuku was the _only_ person he would've responded to at that time--and now, since partnerships went both ways, Tasuku just gave Demios his bed for the night. He had other things he needed to do, and it wasn't like it'd be the first time he just ended up sleeping in the pile of clothes on his floor after a long day.

He waited for Demios to fall asleep, and then quietly moved his chair back to his desk and peeked outside to see if the other dragon in his home had also fallen asleep yet. Some nights Jack would stay up for _hours_ watching TV, but tonight was mercifully not one of them, and so the pieces of Tasuku's plan were all falling together. Kyoya hadn't sent his goodnight text yet, and that meant Tasuku could still safely send a message he probably should've figured out he needed to send ages ago. Just a few simple, easy words.

About thirty minutes later, Tasuku was standing in front of his apartment building, bundled up in a coat and scarf to keep out the night chill. He kept looking up and down the street, trying to keep an eye out--and then Kyoya turned the corner and waved at him a little, looking just as tightly wrapped up as Tasuku was.

“Hey, Tasuku.” Kyoya's smile seemed more smugly satisfied than usual, like a pampered housecat that had just caught a mouse. “Telling me you want to see me right before I was going to sleep… You're quite the crafty one, aren't you?”

“I'm just glad you agreed to see me even though it's this late.” Kyoya's smile was the kind that used to always drive Tasuku to wanting to smack it off his face, but now he knew it was just...how his smiles were. So he smiled back. “It's not too dangerous of a city at night these days, but I still can't believe you showed up here without any bodyguards or something.”

“Why would I need them when I have you?” Still disarmingly straightforward. Tasuku wasn't sure if he liked this Kyoya more or less than the old one, but he did know he was very weak to him. “So where are we going this fine autumn evening?”

“Will you walk with me for a while?”

Tasuku took the first step, and Kyoya fell into step right at his side. Where it had always been habit for Tasuku to walk just a little bit behind Kyoya, now they were walking side by side without any proclamation or even fanfare. Just two kids walking together too late at night. It felt meaningful, but not in a way he wanted to say out loud.

“To tell the truth,” Kyoya said, “I hadn't even thought of asking anyone along to protect me, and no one offered. I suppose all of us are far too used to the idea of me on my own, after years of having Azi Dahaka with me.”

Well, maybe not so straightforward. “Being a dragon god's chosen one comes with a lot of perks, huh?”

“Something like that.” They rounded the corner, and Tasuku thought briefly to himself that in situations like this, he should reach out and take Kyoya's hand.

He shoved his hands into his pockets. “...It comes with a lot of pressure, too. Having expectations like those weigh more than most people think they do.”

“And you're not most people, of course?” They crossed the street at the crosswalk Tasuku indicated, still unwilling to jaywalk even when accompanied by a criminal who should've been in jail right now, and Kyoya answered his own question. “No, of course you aren't. You were chosen too.”

Apparently, there was a prophecy about Tasuku. It was quite old and the family of dragons that had been asked to protect it had only passed it down by word of mouth. The version that had passed down to modern times was simply that a child blessed by the stars would be born in another world, and that their destiny would influence the fates of all worlds. When Tasuku had first found out about it, it had sounded as unreal then as it did now, and even more unreal for Kyoya to have brought it up.

It figured he would know, though. He always seemed to know everything.

“Yeah, or so they say.” It was an awkward topic to talk about, but presumably Kyoya felt the exact same way at having his being chosen by another god brought up out of the blue too. “It sounds about as realistic as anyone else being chosen by the stars or whatever, but…”

“As if either of us would doubt something like that at this point.” Kyoya looked up at the starless city sky, the moon alone looking back at him. “It's one thing to have the expectations of other humans on you, but quite different to know that you, _specifically_ you, have been hand-picked by something from another world and they expect you to be their salvation. All when you're still just a child who doesn't know much about the world.”

“...I didn't even know about it until recently. I've been called the child of destiny before, but things like that don't mean much when everyone else is calling you a once in a lifetime prodigy.” This was something he hadn't told anyone else about, but there were a lot of things he hadn't told anyone. It was time to start breaking that habit. “Back when I'd visited Dragon World with Jack, we'd visited his family and they accidentally spilled the beans about how I was the subject of a prophecy they'd been given a long time ago, and how the reason Jack had partnered with me was just because it was his family duty. They thought I already knew.” Tasuku sighed. “Do you know when Jack partnered up with me?”

“...It was right after your parents died in the Disaster, wasn't it.” Phrased like a question, but it was just a statement of hard facts.

“Yeah.” Tasuku fell silent, and so did Kyoya, their footsteps and distant traffic and the chilly fall breeze the only sounds between them for a while. “We ended up getting into a big fight about it. All these years and I'd thought that he'd come to rescue me with no ulterior motives, and...it felt a lot like a betrayal. We patched stuff up eventually, but it's still a touchy topic for both of us.”

“On this planet, it's hard to get very far without finding a ‘chosen one’ in some form or another, but much harder to find someone who wasn't chosen just to be friends or to be mentored or...any similar reason.” Kyoya sounded like he'd given this topic a lot of thought, and maybe he had--the god that had chosen him was asleep, not to wake again until Kyoya would be long dead and forgotten. “Even Suzuha would count for one chosen by a god, but Mary Sue clearly doesn't have any ulterior motives with her.”

“You're the only one who understands, I think. Or maybe it'd be better to say you're the only one who _can_ understand.”

Pressure and expectations were something that came naturally in society, and children were supposed to slowly grow into the roles that adults took, waiting for the pressure to feel less like a burden and more just like how the world is. But the two of them had forced themselves into adult roles when they were both still children, only to be put on a pedestal and alienated by people the same age as them, and ignored and ridiculed and disrespected by people older them. That normal pressure everyone else around them was able to handle was something almost completely unbearable. And then, on top of that near-crushing weight to both fulfill and defy expectations, denizens from other worlds had wanted them to live up to a destiny that someone else had written out for them. Who else could understand that kind of weight?

Tasuku was guilty of putting Kyoya on a pedestal, too. He'd seen Kyoya as a savior of sorts, in a lot of the ways Jack had been for a little nine-year-old brat stranded on a mountainside, but what Kyoya had saved was Tasuku's sense of justice and maybe something like his sense of self. Kyoya had been, in the eyes of six-months-ago Tasuku, someone who was pure and pristine and everything that Tasuku wasn't--sure of himself and his goals and what he could do to fix everything. But even Kyoya, who had seemed so much like a clean and fresh notebook for Tasuku to start anew in, was just as unsure and uncertain as he was. It was sobering to think about--he'd once abandoned everything for Kyoya to become the center of his world, but even he wasn't really in control of anything at all.

And Kyoya had put Tasuku on a similar pedestal--the centerpiece of his plans, the key to everything, the new second-in-command, the person that Kyoya had been willing to move the Earth itself to meet. They'd both seen each other as so special, so _miraculous_ that they'd never looked much past that. In the end, they'd both just been using each other.

They arrived at the park they'd been walking to, a small one a few blocks away from Tasuku's apartment. He'd never actually been here at night, and the skeletons of dead trees looked eerie in the moonlight and yellow glow of streetlamps. Dead leaves crunched beneath their shoes as they walked in, completely alone in the world. In the past, being alone with Kyoya was something that had made Tasuku nervous, but now it didn’t feel worth worrying about at all.

Their final destination was a metal bench somewhere near the center of the park, near a small building that was used as a children’s center during the summer. Along the wall near the door were a couple of vending machines, and Tasuku motioned for Kyoya to sit down. “Let me get us something to drink.”

“I can pay for it, if you want.” The next thing Kyoya did was about the most horrifying thing Tasuku could have imagined--pulling out his wallet.

Tasuku grabbed Kyoya’s hand and pushed it back down. “ _Please_ don’t show me what the inside of that looks like.”

“It’s just--”

“Don’t describe it to me either. It’s fine. I can afford something this small.” Tasuku went over to the vending machines and fished a few coins out of his pockets, enough for two canned milk coffees, since he still remembered Kyoya’s preferences. Normally he would’ve picked the plain black one, but he’d just finished thinking about why he shouldn’t try to keep up appearances with Kyoya. Maybe other people in the world wouldn’t be able to take him seriously if he didn’t keep everything from his work schedule to his coffee bitter and mature, but at least Kyoya would.

He handed one of them to Kyoya, who took it gingerly. “It’s warm.”

“Some vending machines get heated during the fall and winter. One of the wonderful innovations of technology.” This was the kind of thing that even little kids knew, but Kyoya was two years older than him. Rich people really were sheltered in the strangest of ways. Or maybe this was just something Kyoya'd had to give up to become the person he was now. “Don’t just let it sit around until it gets cold, though.”

Tasuku popped the top of his and watched as Kyoya, who had never encountered something like canned coffee before, investigated his own can. It was kind of cute, in a weird way, seeing someone like Kyoya who was always in control and always seemed to know everything to get confused by something that was simple and common to the average person who didn’t have more money than anyone on the whole planet needed.

Kyoya really was...just a person. Not a god or a hero or a prince or a villain, but just a regular fifteen-year-old boy who had been forced to take too much onto his shoulders.

“Too much caffeine isn’t good for someone your age, Tasuku.” Kyoya had finished his investigation and had figured out how to open a pop-top can. “It’ll stunt your growth.”

“One day I will grow taller than you, and that is a promise.” He sat down next to Kyoya, a small little bubble of warmth against the cold. Tasuku hadn’t had coffee this sweet in a long time, but it was what he genuinely, honestly preferred--black coffee tasted like asphalt. Not that he knew what asphalt tasted like, or anything. “...That stuff earlier wasn’t what I’d wanted to talk to you about. It was sort of related though, I guess.”

“Oh, you didn't just call me out here to talk about how special we are?” Kyoya’s sly, catlike grin could be really annoying when he wanted it to be. “I figured not. A one-on-one meeting in the middle of the night when we should both be asleep is for something that’s actually important.”

When he put it like that, it was embarrassing. “What if I was just taking something from your book and just wanted to see you again?” Kyoya raised his eyebrows, and Tasuku realized that line had been even more embarrassing. “...It’s not that, either. I finally have an answer for you.”

Kyoya was silent, his rose-red eyes staying right on Tasuku’s. He was just...waiting. So Tasuku kept talking. “I’m sure after all this you know what I’m going to say, but I’m still going to say it anyways.

“I’ve been thinking really hard about your offer, and I know you meant it, too. And I know that while you do sincerely mean to ask me to help you save this world again, that offer is also coming from the fact that you don’t have anyone else close to you anymore.” Kyoya’s expression didn’t change. “And to tell the truth, I don’t have anyone that close to me anymore either. I’ve been...keeping everyone away. So when you reached out to me I really just didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I mean, there was more influencing if I said yes or no than just that, but…

“Our conversation earlier made me realize something. I can’t just agree or disagree anymore. I don’t want to have to expect you to keep making the kinds of choices where you just keep putting more and more pressure on yourself, trying to do everything that no one else could. I don’t...want to watch things blow up in your face all over again.” Tasuku couldn’t bear to keep looking Kyoya in the eyes. “I can’t agree to help you. I’m sorry.”

“...I see.” Kyoya’s voice felt so heavy, like another weight had been dropped onto Tasuku’s shoulders. He knew that wasn’t the answer Kyoya wanted to hear. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“But,” Tasuku said, the tone of Kyoya’s voice hardening his resolve even more, “how about this instead?” He set his can of coffee down on the bench next to him and stood up, turning to look at Kyoya and look into those red eyes once more. “Azi Dahaka is gone. The prophecy about me is so old it might as well be a fairy tale told to children. There’s no proof that either of us is special or chosen just because some people say we are. Our positions were given to us by others, selected for us, and that’s not what either of us really want.” Tasuku extended his hand to Kyoya. “Will you stay with me, just as Kyoya? Not as a hopeful hero, or someone who wants to be a god. Not even as the rich heir of the Gaen family name. Just...you.”

Kyoya stared at the offered hand with something like fascination--maybe it had been the first time someone had ever offered their hand to him instead of the other way around. It was a complete switch of their positions from the first time Kyoya had extended a hand to Tasuku, where Kyoya was able to say all the right words and sway Tasuku’s heart into joining him, looking past the front that everyone else saw and into what Tasuku really wanted to hear. And he could only hope that he was giving Kyoya that same feeling now, that he isn’t alone and never has to be alone again.

Slowly, so slowly, Kyoya reached up and took Tasuku’s hand. It was warm, even in the cold night, and Tasuku squeezed his hand gently. “Yes,” Kyoya said, a soft and gentle smile that Tasuku had never seen before on his face, “I will.”

Tasuku helped him stand up and fetched his can of coffee, still warm against his skin but not as warm as Kyoya’s hand was. They walked together, still hand in hand--just two kids, no more special or important than anyone else in the world, spending a bit more time together before returning to guardians who would surely be upset to find out they’d snuck out.

And for once, that was good enough.

**Author's Note:**

> fanart gallery!
> 
> [textless cover image](https://66.media.tumblr.com/48dfa466103cc2eba0f695b3d1f4e6d9/tumblr_proz5eiMXp1tubaw4o1_1280.png) by [garagewolf](https://twitter.com/garagewolf)  
> [before](https://66.media.tumblr.com/7633759b0e928e537e9e5df6f4bdb873/tumblr_prpoy1HJKf1sb0jbr_1280.jpg) [and](https://66.media.tumblr.com/de004e5bf4c45e311e73e27d3c7c858c/tumblr_prpoy0Ecwz1sb0jbr_1280.jpg) [during](https://66.media.tumblr.com/b823220314c5c77189925c5161eeb25c/tumblr_prpoy06s2D1sb0jbr_1280.jpg) the party sequence by [sugarisjustice](https://twitter.com/sugarisjustice)  
> [the dance scene](https://twitter.com/oozorakanata/status/1133596628302958593) by [oozorakanata](https://twitter.com/oozorakanata)  
> [the phonecall scene](https://66.media.tumblr.com/3b7ec31b0f8676c8e093c5e204b11468/tumblr_prozcoW5DP1tubaw4o1_1280.jpg) by [azidahakasys](https://twitter.com/azidahakasys)  
> [the final scene](https://66.media.tumblr.com/28491df8f575238de422bfe953c2c766/tumblr_przhgjIsiD1tubaw4o1_1280.png) by [asutoura](https://twitter.com/asutoura)
> 
> if you have any fanart you'd like to contribute, feel free to comment with it, or send it to me on tumblr @gokurakuageha or on twitter @amanosuzusuzuha!


End file.
